The Seventh Circle
by tyvian
Summary: There's nothing quite like being being kicked a few centuries back in time to really put the damper on an already long week. Add a family curse, and, well, you've pretty much got a sitcom. [SxOC]
1. let's do the time warp (again)

**1.**

"_Sacrifice is a choice you make._

_Loss is a choice made for you."_

- Conrad Roth

* * *

"You should rest," Kate's voice is saying over the phone, but Jo can barely hear her.

"I can't sleep," she murmurs to her best friend, lowering another lamp into a box. "Every time I shut my eyes I just... I can't."

"It is a bit of a morbid process," Kate says with her usual non-existent tact while Jo shuffles her way over to the couch to grab a roll of tape. "I mean... the whole thing with the bones? Why can't you just- bury the poor guy?"

"It's how things are done here," Jo replies, and listens to the screech of tape while she pulls a strip free and closes the box with it. Another bit of her father's life that's never going to see the light of day again. She can't believe she's here alone. She shouldn't be doing this by herself. "Everyone's cremated. They don't have space for burials."

"Yeah, I'm starting to see why you chose to live on the other side of the pond," Kate says after a pause. "I'm sorry, hon. I really am."

"I know," Jo tells her. "I am too. He... wasn't himself, the last few months. I just wish I'd been here."

"Hey. You have a life and a job. You couldn't just up and leave. Besides, this was out of the blue, right?"

She remembers being told. The suddenness of it had made everything seem like a joke. "Yeah," she finally says, swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat. This has been one of the stupidest parts of grieving. There's no warning when the crying jags hit. They come out of nowhere and last anywhere from two to fifteen minutes, and she always looks like a mess by the end of them. Sometimes she feels like it's alright- like she's already moving on, even though it's been just barely a week, and then she sees something that reminds her of him and it's Niagara Falls all over again. It's pathetic.

"You okay? I mean... besides..."

"Yeah," she repeats, sounding a lot more convincing than she feels. "I'm just going to pack up the last of these things and... sort out the office and then get some sleep. I'll be back on Thursday."

Kate sighs. "Okay, hon. Promise to try and rest at least, alright? You can't run on three hours all day."

"If it doesn't work I promise to take one of those muscle relaxers you stuff down my throat. You know those knock me out," Jo offers, and hears Kate laugh. "You should get going. It's gotta be really late for you."

"Three, in fact."

"Go to bed, you idiot," Jo snarls into the receiver, kicking a box out of her way. She moves into the dark hallway and flips the light switch, feeling a swell of bittersweet longing rise in her when the familiar corners of her father's house come to life beneath the ceiling lights. She's going to miss coming here.

"Yes, ma'am," Kate says, not at all truthfully. "Are you sure you don't want me to hang around? You could... open Skype, or something, if it would make you feel better. I don't mind staying up."

"I already told you to go to bed, shithead," Jo says. "I'm not a baby. It's not like I'll be sucked into another dimension or something. I'll still be here in the morning. Now go to sleep."

"Man, fine! You'd think _I_ was the one in need of love and comfort. Geez. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Deal. Tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Goodnight. And remember that I love you. Maybe not as much as your mom's money, but I do."

"Wow, thanks," Jo says dryly, elbowing her way into her father's office. "How could I ever have made it this far without you, Kate?"

Kate snorts. "Beats me. Mwah. Try not to eat too much of that funky Japanese shit you guys have over there. I want you back without extra tentacles."

"Are you going, or not?"

"I am, I am! Bye."

"_Bye_."

The line goes dead and she lowers the phone with a quiet exhale, glad to be done with talking. She loves Kate as much as it is possible for a person to love another without wanting to marry them, but there are times even her best friend feels tiring- in fact, a lot of the world does that to her nowadays. There's a different sort of detachment that comes with death, one that severs you from everything. Food tastes different enough to make you uncomfortable, but it's not something you can explain. Colors change. Words sound odd and distant. A silent sort of discomfort settles on you, and you can't shake it no matter how hard you try.

She brushes a hand over the worn surface of her father's desk, remembering him working here. He would sometimes draw little monsters in the margins of his draft notebooks just for her. It's almost impossible to believe she's never going to hear his voice again. She's afraid- afraid of forgetting even one thing about him, and already her image of him is starting to fade. She can't quite recall the timber of his voice or the exact color of his eyes. All she sees is the peaceful face and the folded hands and sunken cheeks, the way he had looked when the mortician had fed him to the incinerator.

Jo opens the door next to one of the library shelves and is greeted by the sight of a tall filing cabinet. This must have been the research he'd been talking about. He never did have the chance to tell her all about it. She sniffs away the persistent sting of tears and ties her hair back with an elastic band.

Just a little longer. A little longer and she'll be able to go home.

* * *

"Ugh! Done."

She heaves the last box onto the table and stops for a minute, wiping at her brow with the back of her wrist. This is it. Her father's life, all neatly packaged into labeled cardboard boxes. It seems so impersonal that it makes a lingering sickness rise in the back of her throat. After this, she'll shut the room and never have step foot in here again. She just has to remember that.

Jo scans the room, trying to remember through a fog of exhaustion if she's missed anything. She's about to turn out the lights when she remembers she hasn't checked the top of the libraries. Her father loved stashing things there- she remembers that from when they used to live together. He'd call the tops of his shelves his secret places, because her mother never thought to look there for anything she was searching for. She tiptoes and reaches a hand over the top of the library, half-sighing, half-laughing when her fingertips brush up against something tough and square.

It takes two chairs for her to be able to reach the box squirreled away against the wall on the top of the library, and she nearly breaks her neck for her troubles when the chairs wobble and almost fall under her weight. She sits down on the floor with the dusty prize in her lap, coughing and feeling incredibly dirty. A shower is definitely in order after this.

Jo scrubs away the grime over the taped label on the box. It's her father's neat kanji, written in permanent marker.

"'Takehiko,'" she reads, raising a brow. Never heard the name before. College friend of Dad's? She grasps the x-acto knife on the table and cuts through the tape, regretting it immediately when a cloud of old, fine, must rises from the insides of the box and washes over her face.

"Jesus," she gasps, waving the mist away with one hand. "Oh, God, that's nasty."

Her eyes are still watering when she looks into the box. Papers. Lots of papers. And all handwritten. What in the world...? She reaches in and lifts some, holding them under the desk-light above her head to see them better.

"'Fifteen hundreds, prominence of myths- need to find records. _Koseki_ certificate attached.' Dad, what were you doing?" she says to no one in particular, flipping through the stapled pages. Family trees, names circled in red pen, dates in the margins- none of it makes sense. Some of the names are familiar. She remembers them from the stories Dad used to tell her when she was young and still living in Japan, when he and mom were still together and she thought she'd be spending the rest of her life in this house.

"We used to be a great family," he'd tell her, brushing back the pale brown fuzz of her hair back, hair that was so unlike his. "You come from a long line of samurai and formidable ladies. Back in the day when demons still _lurked_-" and here he would always pinch her sides and she would shriek with laughter "-the Akiyama could live for hundreds of years and were protected by the old magic. One of your great great grandmothers was a demon herself!"

"Are you filling her head with silly stories, again?" her mother would ask disapprovingly, worried and unhappy. "Demons, Touya? Really?"

"They're just things to pass the time with," he'd always reply.

"They would be, if I didn't think you actually _believed _them!"

She'd always defended her father in those conversations, even when she'd gotten older, even after the divorce, even after moving thousands of miles away and changing houses and leaving behind everything when her mother had decided they had no place in Japan anymore. She looks down at the papers and the feverish writing and she wonders if she was right to have done so.

"I'll have to put these away," she says to the empty room, and starts pulling the things out of the box and onto the floor. She knows she should probably not be going through them, but father's gone now, and no one else is going to ever look at these things. His family isn't going to be involved any time soon- any of them. She'd been the only one at the wake other than two of her father's coworkers. Not one of them had appeared. Not the day he died, not at the funeral, not at the reception, not now.

She'd only ever met one of her aunts on his side once, and she remembers the woman as a quiet, nervous person with wide eyes and a weak brow. Mizuko Akiyama hadn't been a particularly beautiful or striking woman, but she was collected in the way only a middle-aged person who was for better or worse adapted to living in their skin could be. She'd taken Jo by the arm and looked at her, the way someone looks at a vase in a store, up and down, and had wiped the hair from Jo's face and pinched at her cheeks.

"If you dyed her hair you could present her to Mother," Mizuko had said, and Jo had watched as her father went from red to scarlet, a color that only appeared on Touya's face when he was embarrassed- or furious- beyond belief. Looking back, Jo believes it was both.

"We could put contacts in, but I think Mother would notice those."

"_We're _not doing anything," Touya had said, snatching Jo away with protective hands, barely able to force the words out. "If Mother wants to meet her, she'll have to drive out here herself. Jo is my daughter, whether you all like it or not."

That had been the last she heard of the Akiyama family. It had taken another ten or so years for her parents to be able to explain to her why she'd never met any of them, and by then Jo had been old enough to form her own opinion about these faceless, silent people that had acted as judges for the entirety of her living memory.

It's better now, as far as Japan goes, Jo thinks as she sifts idly through the papers, her eyes trailing lazily along the lines upon lines of packed writing about Akiyama family history. She's often mistaken as a tourist before she speaks, but she supposes that's inescapable. At least the questions now are more kind or ignorant than anything else. School had been another matter entirely. Growing up in a suburb populated by only the most ordinary-looking, uniform Japanese kids hadn't been the easiest childhood.

Is she Japanese? She doesn't really know. Biologically, she supposes she is. It won't do to dwell on it now. She hasn't been able to answer that before, that's not going to change.

"Is this the last of it?" she asks herself, irritated, as she clears the bottom of the box. There are a few pieces of torn paper and sticky notes at the bottom, along with what looks like a small string of juzu beads. Touya hadn't been a devout man, by any means, but he'd always been diligent and respectful. Not too surprising that he had a set of beads lying around, even if by the looks of them they haven't been out of the box in a good few years.

She takes a moment to look at them. It's a pretty strand, the beads a faded turquoise. There's a knot where one of them is apparently missing before a tattered tassel ties off the end of the string. That's a shame. It may have fetched good money if it were in better condition.

And right after the thought passes her mind, the beads burn white-hot- searing right into her palm. _Pain_.

"Ow!" she yelps, not even listening while the string clatters to the ground. "What the hell?"

She stares at the string lying twisted there on the floor, innocently lovely in the dim light of her father's empty office. Something about it unsettles her. She abruptly wants nothing more to do with it. She turns to pick up the box and leave the room when the door to the office slams shut. She can't stop herself from screaming in fright. She could have imagined the burning beads- it's been a long, long day, and she hasn't slept more than four hours in a row for the last week, but there is no way she could have imagined the door _closing on its own_.

Jo rattles the handle, feeling the breath catch in her throat and terror rise in her gut. Why had her father insisted on Western-style doors instead of shoji? _Why_? (To make her mother more comfortable, her mind supplies). There's no way she can knock this down. Tears start gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Let me out! Please, is anyone there? Someone?"

She yells till her throat is sore.

Silence, for a while, until the rattling begins.

It starts softly, and she only notices when she realizes a light is growing behind her. She presses her back to the door and tries to fight the building yell in her throat when she sees the string of beads she'd left on the floor are glowing like small stars, so blindingly bright that she has a hard time even looking at them directly.

"What the hell is going on?" she says, voice thick with tears. Hadn't she been talking to her best friend on the phone just about an hour ago? Wasn't she planning on calling takeout and having a calm night in so she could pack tomorrow and be ready for the long trip back to Portland?

The string rattles again and she sobs, sliding down to the ground and lifting her knees to her chest. The room is small, windowless, and there's nowhere to go. It's just her, the floor scattered with her father's old paperwork, and the terrible, great light. She's burying her face in her arms when something speaks into her ear, feather-soft and clear as day.

"_Don't be frightened,_" it says, sure and safe. Something hot wraps around her wrist as it talks. "_Don't be frightened..._"

She doesn't know what drives her to leap to her feet and tear the door open, but she does so- and to her infinite relief, it swings inward under her pull. She runs out into what she thinks is the dark house, shaking with anxiety. She hasn't taken more than three steps from the office when she stumbles and trips, tumbling head over heels, and when she comes to a stop she notices what's felt wrong all along. She runs a palm across the ground, feeling panic bloom in her when she does so. It's so dark she can't even see her own hand, though she knows it's moving.

"Grass...?"

Impossible, she thinks, but what Jo doesn't know is that she's going to change her definition of that word very soon. She sits there among the swaying grass, freezing, bare feet pressing into the damp soil, the thud of her heart pounding in her ears. And above it all, the whisper of the voice from the office, looping over and on until she understands what it's saying.

"_Welcome home."_


	2. a little bit behind

**2.**

"_Not until we are lost do we_

_begin to understand ourselves."_

_-_ Henry David Thoreau

* * *

After sitting in the dark for about what feels like half an hour, she crawls, walks, shuffles until she hits something solid, and sits against it while she traces her fingers over its surface. Rough, grooved, wavy - it feels like a tree, it smells like one.

She curls up there and links her arms around her knees, shivering, trying to figure out what has happened and praying harder than she ever has in her entire life that she will wake up any minute now in the spare futon in her father's house, nervous and sweating but relieved that the nightmare was finally over. But she doesn't seem to be dreaming and she doesn't feel like she's waking up. It takes another fifteen minutes for the crying to really set in, and when it begins it doesn't stop for a very long time.

Her cheeks burn from the constant rubbing of her sleeves against her skin as she tries to staunch the flow of tears. "Stop, stop," she says to herself, hiccuping and covering her eyes with one hand. "Breathe. Space. You have your own space. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four..."

She only becomes distracted from the counting when light begins to creep between her fingers and she opens her eyes to the sun climbing above the horizon. The clearing comes to life around her as the sun rises. Dawn fills every corner. Dew shines on the ends of the blades of grass all around her, on the edges of webs spun from branch to branch, gossamer and silvery in the morning; she can hear thrushes in the bush and a latticework of yellow light appears above her, moving through the canopy of leaves whispering over her head.

For a moment, she's struck by how beautiful the little clearing is. It lasts for maybe another half a second before she's staggering to her feet and walking out beyond the line of trees. She sees hills, small, not-very-rolling green hills, dotted with equally small, stunted trees, and running between them is a worn dirt path. If she strains her eyes hard enough she can see where the hills dip into what looks to be an inlet. That's got to mean a river. And rivers usually mean settlements.

"Just breathe," she reminds herself as she takes another step and feels the ground squelch between her toes.

Soon they'll be numb enough that she won't be able to feel even that. She can make it down that road. She's wrestled with aggressive dogs and pinned down vicious mixes half her size. She's presented her thesis to people who were so above her paygrade she didn't even exist in their line of sight. She's listened to her mother call her father names that made the blood in her veins boil and her vision break out into dizzying dots. She can do this.

The next time she puts her foot down she crunches on a twig. Her sole explodes with warmth and pain.

Okay, so maybe it's going to be a little harder than she thought.

* * *

"I've... seen that rock before."

Or is it just a rock that looks a lot like the one she walked past about forty-five minutes ago? She doesn't know. Her feet hurt. She knows _that_. She should have hit some sort of civilization by now, shouldn't she? But no matter where she looks, she doesn't see anything vaguely resembling buildings. In fact, everything looks like absolutely untouched countryside. Is that even possible? How is it even realistic that she opened her father's office door and apparently ran into a forest?

Maybe she hit her head when she slipped on the chairs in the office. Maybe even now she's lying there, dreaming this elaborate dream- complete with hunger, and thirst, and sore soles, and a wonderfully realistic headache. She wants to go home. She wants to see her dogs again. She wants to listen to her mother complain about the quality of things she wouldn't be able to afford even if she sold her soul twice over. She wants to watch old movies with Kate and fall asleep over a bowl of cheetos and wake up with the DVD on repeat.

Jo stops and looks around as though doing it for the thousandth time is going to magically make something familiar appear. Her pajamas are too thin for this weather. It's sunny but nippy, the kind of cold that suits early autumn or the beginnings of winter. And she's out here, barefoot, in flannel pajamas with one scrunchie in her hair and nothing to keep her warm. She has to find some place to stay or crawl under before daylight's up. She's not sure she can last another night outside.

It's about another half hour before she passes something that looks like a very dark boulder, and she's completely convinced it really is just a strange geological formation before it moves and stands and apparently grows two legs and arms. She's shrieked and taken a few steps back before she realizes that it's actually just a person- a very dirty person, with a basket slung across his back and a very rustic-looking conical reed hat sitting on his head.

"Miss?" he says in Japanese thick with a rural accent she can't place.

"Oh my God," she gasps before she can catch herself. Another human being. "_Oh my God_."

"Miss? I can't understand what you're saying."

She hobbles toward him, almost crying out of relief. "Please!" she forces out, trying to keep the trembling from her voice. "Please, can you tell me where I am?"

"Where you are?"

"Yes! Please, just- please tell me."

The man looks puzzled, but, to his credit, he just tilts back his reed hat and looks at her slightly weirdly before he answers. "You're in the Musashi Province, about two leagues out from the Sacred Tree. If you follow the path you'll go down to Misatomori and the Bone Eater's Well. Are you alright?"

"Okay, I didn't understand half of what you said, but it's a start," Jo says, trying to ignore the thundering of her heart. He couldn't have possibly just said Musashi- that province was dissolved in the early Meiji when Japan turned more toward the West and was renamed and divided into other prefectures. The name is only used in articles and old records talking about the Feudal Era. It would be just like her type of luck to stumble on the only village in the entire country that was dedicated to living backwards.

"Miss?"

"Yeah! I, uh- thanks for the directions. I'm just a little... lost."

The man smiles a bit, his bushy brows rising. "I can see that. Maybe we should head on down to the village. Lady Kaede could help you with whatever you need."

"Lady Kaede?"

"The village priestess," he says, fiddling with the straps of his basket. "She's a woman of great skill and knowledge. I have no doubt she'll be able to give you some answers."

Jo winces. "Do I really look that out of place?"

The man shoots her an appraising glance that says 'do you really have to ask?'

"You're the type Lady Kaede has experience with," he says. "I'm Rikichi."

"Hello," she returns. "I'm Jo. I'm her... type?"

"Yeah, you know... half-demon."

Great. They really _are_ insane.

She puts her hands behind her back. "I - ah... I'm pretty sure both my parents were human. Very human."

He looks surprised. "Really? I've never seen eyes like yours except on people like that Inuyasha. They're green!"

"Green isn't that uncommon where I come from," Jo says, twiddling her fingers. Good God, he talks like he still lives in the 1500s. Calm, Jo. Just calm. You'll get to the village, you'll find a phone, or a post office, or something, and you'll get the hell out of Dodge before anyone starts trying to bless you with holy water or exorcizing you.

"Odd," Rikichi remarks, and tips his hat back further. "Well... it's only down the hill. Let's go and see what she has to say."

She smiles warily. "You go on ahead, I'll be following. I might be a little slow."

His eyes widen in disbelief when he looks down. "You're not wearing sandals? Your feet must be ripped to pieces! Climb onto my back and hold on."

"What? No. I couldn't. I shouldn't."

"You can't be heavier than my son," Rikichi says, squatting down in front of her. "Come on. It'll go faster."

"I'm going to regret this."

And she does. Somewhat.

The herbs Rikichi has gathered in his basket tickle her nose and poke through her pajama shirt while he carries her down the incline and into the quiet little village he'd called Misatomori. It's big, as far as villages go, with rows of rice paddies on its outskirts and huts of reed and mud-brick. It looks like something out of a history book. Rikichi sets her down in front of a hut that has a straw-curtain divider instead of a door and tells her to wait while he goes inside.

She stands there uncertainly until he comes back out with an older woman decked out in the perfect restoration of old-school _miko_ uniform at his heels. She's stoutly-built, with a strong face and a black leather patch strapped over her right eye. Her face is worn with age but Jo can imagine her as she was when she was younger - pretty, in her own wholesome and solid way, with the confident chin and the sure brow. The one eye Jo can see turns on her instantly. It's the brown of old oak or hazel, perceptive and keen.

"So, this is Jou?"

The woman in question shuffles on her feet, remembers the cuts on her toes, winces, and stops. "Jo. Yeah. That's me."

"You were right, Rikichi," Lady Kaede says, clasping her hands behind her back. "She does look odd."

"I'm glad to have made such an exceedingly good first impression," Jo says and rolls her eyes. "Okay, so... do you guys have a phone or something I could use? I have to get back home. Playing samurai is nice and all, but, uh... it's not really my thing. So if you could show me to the nearest booth...?"

Lady Kaede shakes her head, the long ponytail of salt-and-pepper hair swinging with the movement. "I know not what ye speak of, child, but I can assure you there is no such thing here."

"That's impossible," Jo explodes, the fear coming back to her in a rush. "I've been walking for the last couple of hours. I'm cold, I'm hungry, I'm scared _shitless_, I don't know where the hell I am, and I am _not _taking no for an answer." The tears swim back to her eyes. She's so tired, tired down to her bones. "Please, don't joke with me. I just want to go home."

Kaede watches her as her shoulders shake and she wipes away the moisture on the cheeks with the back of a dirty hand, and finally something in the old _miko_'s weathered face softens, and her posture relaxes.

"Rikichi, bring her inside. She shouldn't be on those feet any longer," she says, pulling the straw curtain aside. "You need food and fire... and proper clothes."

* * *

Jo is still coming to terms with the fact that she may actually have fallen backward in time some quarter of an hour later, when her feet are bound with bandages and packed with healing poultices that make the cuts sting but soothe them all the same.

Kaede had handled her with consummate grace, with gentility Jo hasn't known in anyone before. She'd sat and endured while Kaede picked out every stick and splinter out of the little lesions on the bottom of her feet, and had closed her eyes and bit her lip while Kaede swathed them in bandages and tied the fastenings tightly.

"Those will need to be changed day to day," the priestess says when she finally sits back, wiping her hands free of poultice on a clean rag at her side.

Jo looks at her through her eyelashes, unsure. "You're not going to call me crazy?"

Kaede pulls herself to her feet with a grunt and busies herself with stoking the fire. "And why would I do that, child?"

"I don't know," Jo mumbles, leaning her chin on her knees. "Maybe because I told you I'm from the future and walked in here through a door in my house?"

The _miko_ stirs the contents of the kettle sitting atop the fire with a long wooden ladle, her one good eye glinting in the firelight. "You'll come to learn that the lands around here are stranger than most," she says at last. "This area has always been the site of bizarre happenings, for better or worse. After all the things I have seen, it would be foolish to refuse you out of willfulness alone. Ye don't have the look of a liar about ye."

Jo laughs nervously. "I promise I'm not lying," she says weakly, thinking about how much she would give right now for a good shower. "I just... wanna go home."

The priestess looks at her with too much understanding. "Have ye always had that bracelet?"

It takes a little while for Jo to fully understand the question. "Bracelet? I'm not wearing one. Am I?"

She looks down at her wrists. Right is bare, and left - she feels her heart drop right into her stomach as she looks at the string coiled around her left wrist, one with six turquoise juzu beads and a small, tattered tassel. That's ridiculous. She left it at home, on the floor of her father's office, and there is no way it could _be here_.

Kaede makes a small sound of affirmation. "The color of your face tells me enough. There is a great amount of disturbed spiritual energy around that string," she says, and sits beside Jo, taking the girl's wrist in one gnarled hand. "Do ye know where the last bead is?"

Jo shakes her head, numb. "I... I found it this way. Just six of them. But I never put it on, I - I left it behind when I... it's just not possible."

"It must have followed ye," Kaede says simply, as though it is the most sensible thing in the world that an inanimate object apparently has a will of its own.

"_Followed_ me? The hell is it, a dog? It's just a stupid - _ah!_"

Kaede draws her hand back as the beads glow and burn the way they had only a day ago. Jo yelps in pain and moves to slide the bracelet off when the glow dies down and the beads are back to looking their normal, faded turquoise, but there's just one problem - it won't budge.

"I can't even move it," she says in dismay, gritting her teeth when she digs her fingers under the bracelet and tries pulling it off. It doesn't even twist.

"There's a binding charm on it," Kaede says, staring at it thoughtfully. "A powerful one. I think it's chosen you as its bearer."

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Jo asks, disbelief strong in her voice. "I have no idea what this thing is. I just found it at the bottom of a dingy box."

"It may have been what brought ye here," the priestess suggests, brushing at one of the beads with a careful finger. "It wants something, that much is evident."

"So what am I supposed to do to make it happy?"

_I've really lost it. I'm asking about the wellbeing of a goddamn bracelet. _

"I suspect it has something to do with that missing bead," Kaede says, her mouth pursing in thought. "Enchanted items are often simple and straightforward in their desires. The string is not complete. Perhaps the true scope of its abilities will be unlocked when the final bead is in place."

"How do we know the last one hasn't been... eaten, or burned, or crushed, or something?" Jo says, stopping herself short of saying it's just a bracelet. She's already made that mistake once, and she'd rather not have a permanent burn scar on her wrist. She's survived all these years working with dogs without serious injury or disfigurement - one stubborn, pissy bracelet is not going to break her track record.

Kaede rubs at her chin. "Judging by the magnitude of the magic protecting the beads, that's not likely. Whoever pulled this apart was just as - if not more - powerful, and it wouldn't have been easy, even for them."

_Am I honestly taking this talk about magic and charms entirely seriously? _

"Then I need to find this last bead," Jo says, surprising herself, and Kaede, too, if the _miko_'s widened eyes are of any indication.

"That won't be an easy undertaking."

"Nothing is easy," Jo murmurs, moving the hair out of her face. "I learned that a very long time ago."

Kaede remains still for a moment before she reaches into one of her long sleeves and pulls out a piece of thin rice-paper with bold, illegible kanji scrawled on it. A sutra. She hasn't seen one of those in... ever, really. She blinks at Kaede questioningly.

"What do ye see?"

Blink again. "Uh... it's a piece of paper."

Kaede nods. "And now?"

"Ummm... nope, still a piece of paper. Or, maybe - no, that can't be."

The priestess sighs. "Just answer the question."

"Fine - now it looks brighter. As though the paper is... full of light. Wow, that sounds even stupider when I say it."

"Good," Kaede says, putting the sutra back into her sleeve. "Very good. You noticed the change in spiritual energy when I focused mine on the sutra. There's potential. You may survive yet."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jo laughs and crosses her arms over her chest for warmth. Though the fire is burning bright, she still feels cold. She waits while Kaede spoons some stew into wooden bowls with the ladle standing in the kettle, and thanks the priestess quietly when she takes the bowl in her hands.

"Eat well," Kaede orders her firmly. "We start tomorrow."

Jo nearly spits her stew out. "Start _what_?"

"Your training," the priestess says baldly, turning to her own bowl. "You're not going to be finding any bead in your condition."

"I resent that!"

"Can you purify objects? Do you know what a demon feels like? Can you tell them apart from humans with your eyes shut? Do you know any holy incantation? Can you erect a barrier? Can you shoot a bow?"

"...I took archery classes for two weeks in summer camp when I was twelve."

"We start tomorrow," Kaede repeats, watching Jo struggle with fishing out a vegetable from the sea of stew. Jo stops when she realizes Kaede's eye is on her.

"I somehow feel like I'm being judged."

The _miko _just sighs again. "You will have much to learn. But for this evening, you will only have to listen. Have you ever heard about the Shikon Jewel?"

Jo shakes her head. "No, I'm sorry. I can't say I have."

"A large part of why there are so few priestesses in this part of the land is because of it. Our numbers never recovered from the time when the Shikon Jewel was still in this world. But then, we still had my sister, also," Kaede begins. "She was called Kikyo, and in another turn of the seasons, she will have been dead for fifty years."

Jo doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing at all. Loss like that can't be softened by any word in any known language. She knows that now.

"I was only a young girl when Kikyo made the acquaintance of a half-demon by the name of Inuyasha..."

* * *

**a/n**: thank you to all who reviewed :) the exposition is almost over!  
hope you enjoyed.


	3. in our day and age

**3.**

"_Lost time is never found again."_

- Benjamin Franklin

* * *

Autumn passes, and then comes spring, in tides of green and yellow and scarlet.

The more the weather warms the longer Kaede keeps her out. She learns to string and unstring bows, and to listen for the twang of health in the draw, to read the curve of the wood and mark a shot with her cheek; to compensate the weight of her feet when she's on horseback and to predict the fall of the arrow when the horse is running at a canter, to ride reinless and speak with pressure and touches of the hand. She learns to walk in _hakama_ and to tie a _kimono_ properly. She works the rice-fields till her shoulders and back ache with the burn of lactic acid and she has only the energy to stagger back to her bedroll around the fire.

She learns what it is to be asleep before her head hits a pillow and the true meaning of exhaustion. She cries every night for the first two weeks of it, until there are no more tears and her heart feels dry. She learns what it is to hurt in places she never knew existed, and how to bathe in cold stream water when there is nothing else available. And there are other things - how to read the kanji of the time and not stumble on the archaic syllables, to adjust to a slowness of life she has not known since she was a child.

Kaede drills her without mercy when her feet have healed. They spend hours at the makeshift range set up near the rice paddies. She eats there and sometimes sleeps under the tree in the afternoon, her _yumi_ tucked into the crook of her elbow. She listens to Kaede's stories at night when the fire is burning low and the wind outside is moving through the grass and has dreams of soaring, swirling clouds and flying among them.

Some nights she has dreams about home, and when she wakes up she feels as though the images lingering in her mind have come from another life. She tells Kaede about that life, about people that aren't born yet and things that will happen in a hundred years, about weapons and inventions that would make simple tasks like tilling fields and sowing seeds a thing of momentary difficulty, about conflicts that will bathe the world in blood and leave continents in smoking ruin. It makes no difference to the _miko_, who will tell no one nothing, but some of the nights Kaede folds her hands together and a look comes over her face that betrays a disturbance of the heart.

The world will continue to be the place it has always been. That much, at least, is certain.

The days pass, and spring melts into summer. Kaede sets meditating mats out behind the hut and leaves her there so she can focus on her breathing and the thud of her heart. There are times that she is so still she can feel the pulses at her throat, the wrists, the backs of her legs, her thighs: she loses track of time there in the small clearing behind Kaede's hut, and to return to a world of noise and light and sensation after a swim through the perfect dark of inner silence is almost painful.

By the end of six months she can name the different thrums of life energy without having to use the aid of her eyes - she will never have the senses of a demon, Kaede tells her, but this is the next best thing, and she believes it. She starts with large things, identifying people working in the fields, and Kaede narrows the focus bit by bit; livestock, children, birds, the village dogs, and then smaller, flightier things, like the dragonflies that gather above the marsh in early summer or the fireflies that emerge from the thicket of pines when the sun sets.

"Every thing in this world has a name," Kaede tells her one night as they catch fireflies in paper lanterns and watch the yellow glow turn the trees around them into pillars of light. "Names have spirits, and if you can teach yourself how to listen, you will begin to know things."

"Well, that sounds ominous," Jo says, cupping two fireflies in her hands and laughing at the feeling of their wings tickling her palms.

"It sounds however you want it to sound," the priestess replies, tilting her head to better see. "That which I teach you may one day be the difference between life and death. I am only glad that your apprenticeship has fallen on me during a time of peace."

Jo lets the fireflies go and follows them with her eyes as they climb upward, the breeze stirring the hair she's tied back with a loose ribbon. "I'm trying my best."

"I know," is all Kaede says, and they stand side by side till the last of the little firefly-lights have flickered out and the only thing moving in the grove is the distant reflection of the stars, sparkling and glimmering in the net of the sky.

Days turn into a month. A month turns into two, and then three - and the months turn into a year. So it passes, still slow as slow can be, and the sharp longing for home eases into a blunt edge that only bites at her heart when she remembers things like showers and television and quick, warm food, or the luxury of fast communication. She had forgotten that delays could kill. Jo sifts through long lists of compiled anthologies of herbs, learning names in Japanese she never bothered to when she was younger. Her father would be proud - or she likes to think he would be, seeing her so patient and pragmatic.

They try removing the bracelet again after that day in the hut when the beads burned so hot they seared little circles into her wrist. Nothing works. Not even the most wicked of scythes can cut through the cord that holds the _juzu_ beads together. Kaede takes her keenest sickle to it and has the strongest man in the village attempt to pull it apart. Still the string endures, and still the persistent, disturbing aura of distorted spiritual energy lingers around it, unsettling Jo in her newfound sensitivity and often making her feel she is being watched. She meditates on it (that seems to be the answer to most unanswerable questions, she's come to find).

Kaede has her sit through dissections of all things supernatural and otherwise, showing her which parts must be buried separately with sealing charms to ensure nothing unsavory rises from the grave in the future, and teaches her the three holy ways of burning, and which kindling works fastest on pyres. She practices incantations until she's sure her tongue is growing bristles and learns to name demons by nothing but their remains, and waits for dawn while sitting in tree branches to catch glimpses of the benevolent forest spirits that pass between our world and the next in the moments before the sun truly rises.

The first time she fires an arrow that bursts into rose-colored light she yelps in surprise and drops her bow entirely, turning to Kaede with fear in her eyes. "Was it supposed to do that?" she has said before she sees that the priestess is bent double in mirth, laughing as loudly as Jo has ever heard her.

"I'm glad you find this amusing!"

Summer wanes and the green bleeds away into grey and red and brown. On an afternoon that the sun is pale over the birches, Kaede tells her it has been a year in full, and Jo sets her half-woven bamboo basket down on her lap, feeling a sense of emptiness wash over her. In her first few weeks she had thought she would be home far sooner than in a year, and now it has happened. She smiles at Kaede, resolves to not let it be two years, and goes back to work, for there is much to be done and she is certain nothing will have changed until tomorrow.

Many more days pass still. It is the eve of the equinox that finds Jo in the county far, far to the west of the village, in pursuit of an _oni_ the likes of which she has only seen once under Kaede's tutelage. It is a vast, lumbering thing, all limb and teeth and goggling eyes.

It moves without any earthly grace or economy but it is no less fast for it, and what it lacks in elegance it makes up for in sheer brutish strength. The _oni_ crashes through the underbrush like a maddened bull, felling tree and bush, but the horse Jo favors is fleet-footed and sure. The gelding leaps over the trunk in their way and lands certainly on the other side, hooves digging deep into the soil. The _oni _turns its ghastly head over its shoulder to look at them, orange eyes eerie in the falling evening gloom.

"Foolish human!" it hisses between its teeth. "Leave me be and I will not touch a hair on your foul head!"

Her teeth grit as she remembers the sunken bodies of the children, the shriveled hands and the gaping jaws, the figures of the parents twisted in grief, the tear-streaked faces and the smell of decay. No one so young should have had to face so horrible a death. They will find no rest without her. She lets go of the reins as she has done many times before and reaches for an arrow from the quiver at her side, fitting it smoothly to the bow and drawing back until the string is stretched past the line of her jaw.

"You shouldn't have touched those kids," she calls back, pulling the string farther still. "I promise to make it quick if you let the souls go."

The demon laughs - a harsh and high grating sound that reminds her of the scrape of cutlery against porcelain. That is one sound from her modern life that she has not missed at all.

"Not a chance!" it says, still laughing, the grey gristly hair on its head tangling around its horns. "You mortals are so frail. Blaming me for suckering those idiots when they should have been strong enough to defend themselves - what a stupid thing to do."

"Shut up," she wills it under her breath, and lets the arrow fly. The string twangs in her ear and she watches with satisfaction as a streak of pink appears around the shaft. Fly true, she wishes, and it buries itself deep into the calf of the demon. The creature howls with pain and spins on its heels so fast that the grass around it moves in the opposite direction. She squeezes the horse's side with her thighs and the gelding makes a smooth circuit to the side, his mane whispering over her hands.

"Vile priestess!" the _oni _shrieks, its claws ripping open great grooves in the ground. "I should have chewed your head off the minute I saw you!"

Jo pulls the gelding to a stop out of the demon's reach and nocks another arrow to her bow. "You should have," she agrees, feeling the strain of the bow in her wrists and arms and back. A good burn. A familiar burn. "Go to hell."

The arrow burrows deep between the demon's eyes, the flesh around it sizzling. There is a sigh of ash and flame, and the body of the creature dissolves into dust, blowing away over bleached bones and skull. Job very well done, if she says so herself. She looks on as the singing orbs of light she has come to know are human souls rise from the remains and ascend, traveling upwards like bubbles on a breeze. She hopes they're happier now. Whatever's up there has got to be an improvement over the mouth of a demon.

"Rest in peace," she says quietly, and then grasps at the reins again with her free hand, nudging the horse left. She scratches at the gelding's ears and bends down to kiss him on the neck. "Good job, boy. That's earned you more than your fair share of apples. Now let's see if there's a stream somewhere around here."

She clicks her tongue and they walk away from the mound of purified ash, and she is glad to begin forgetting about it.

* * *

"Geez, Inuyasha! It's not ready yet. You can't _eat_ raw ramen. I need to actually add the water first."

The frown that comes over his face at the words would curdle milk if it could. "Well, hurry it up already. Before I get old."

Kagome clobbers him over the head with the empty container and scowls back when he growls at her. Somewhere in the back of the hut, Kaede sighs. "You're a half-demon, you don't _get _old. Now be quiet and wait while this boils," she says, trying to shrug off the feeling he gives her when he looks at her that intensely. If he were as serious about some other things as he was about ramen, the world would be a better place, and of that, she is sure. She wishes they had electricity here. Waiting for the water to come to a boil is a complete bore.

She nearly explodes when she hears Inuyasha getting up again.

"How many times do I have to tell you, you _can't _- eh?"

But he's not hovering over her, he's moved toward the reed separator of Kaede's hut and is holding it open with one clawed hand, the white dog ears nestled in his hair quirking in the direction of something she can't hear.

"What is it?"

He wrinkles his nose and narrows his eyes. "Someone's coming."

Kaede stands and shuffles past him. "Could it be?"

"What is it?" Kagome asks again, and when she doesn't get an answer she rolls her eyes and gets up off her knees as well to join them by the doorway. She stands on the tips of her toes and peeks outside between Inuyasha and Kaede's shoulders, trying not to think about the way her arm is almost brushing Inuyasha's side. _That _kind of thinking hasn't ever done anyone any good. Especially her.

There are children of all ages clamoring outside in the afternoon autumn sun, and after about half a minute she sees what they've all been waiting for. A horse and rider appear over the crest of the nearest hill. They approach quickly enough for Kagome to see that the woman on the back of the roan horse is a priestess, with a tall bow slung across her back. Her brown hair looks almost red in the sunlight, but Kagome is more distracted by her face. Some of her features are Japanese - the shape of the eyes and the round nose and the character of the straight hair are all very familiar - but the rest are... different. Foreign.

But immigrants haven't come to the coast of Japan, her mind says. In fact, they're not due for decades yet. If history class serves her memory correctly, the only upcoming connection the country is going to have before being plunged into civil war and consequent unification is the Portuguese, through which the country gained knowledge of Christianity - and guns. That's still not enough time for blood to mix. The rider looks in her early twenties at the least. The timelines don't fit.

She realizes Kaede has caught her staring when the older priestess speaks.

"She does look rather strange, doesn't she?"

"Yeah," Kagome agrees, elbowing her way past Inuyasha, who protests loudly enough in her ear for her to know he felt it.

She steps out into the fresh air just as the horse trots into the village. The children gather around its legs as the priestess dismounts and takes the horse by the bridle to lead him by on the last leg of their journey.

"Lady Jou! Lady Jou! You're finally back. _So_ much has happened - you won't even believe it!"

The woman laughs and lets the children latch onto her knees and waist. "Wow, I've got quite the welcoming committee. It has been quite a while, hasn't it?"

"We thought you were dead," says another kid, one little boy with messy, short hair and a scar across his nose.

"We did not!"

"Did _too_. I heard you say it."

"_Did not_!"

The priestess separates the kids with one careful foot. "Well, thankfully, I'm not, so I think the point is moot."

"I'm glad you weren't eaten by a demon, Lady Jou!"

"Me too, Sosuke."

"Did you bring us any presents?"

Pause. The woman stills, and so do the children. Incredible. For a minute she looks very solemn. "I'm sorry. I didn't have the time..."

Groans of disappointment and general disapproval resound throughout the group as the priestess hangs her head. Kagome is the only one to notice that her hand is reaching for a saddlebag hanging over her horse's flank.

"...to bring you anything but _this_!"

It's a small red ball, just a little larger than some of the children's heads, but from the commotion they make when the priestess throws it away and into the open space between the huts at the center of the village, one would have thought it were a gift come down from the heavens. Kagome supposes that for them it is. The children here have so little, so they're always happy with what they can get - well, most of them, anyway. It's comical to watch the priestess lift the reins and her bow high above her head as the children swarm out and away from her to chase after the ball.

When the last toddler has doddered away, she lowers her arms and sighs loudly in mock fatigue. "Forget demons. They're the really scary part of this job. I don't know what I'd do if I disappointed them."

"Jou," Kaede says, and Kagome is surprised by the fondness in the elder's voice. "Welcome back. Are you well?"

"It's been a month or two at least," the priestess says, and leads her horse over to them. Inuyasha stares at the beast as though it's grown a second head, and the gelding stares right back. Well, he's occupied - for now. Kagome has learned to be grateful for that.

"I was worried, I'll admit," Kaede tells her, and steps out from behind Inuyasha to greet the young woman. She doesn't look much different than usual, with her hands clasped behind her bent back and her face carefully composed, but Kagome can tell she's relieved. "A hunt usually doesn't take you such a while."

The woman winces. "This one was smart," she says, and the look on her face is one of remembered pain. "Led me in a merry chase right up the river. We'd nearly reached the mountain when I caught up. But the Soul Stealer is dead now - and all the poor guys he took with him are resting. I hope."

"That is gladdening news," Kaede says as a man approaches to take away the priestess' horse. "There is someone I want you to meet."

"Oh?"

"Jou, this is Kagome. Kagome, Jou."

At the sound of her own name, the girl looks up from watching the children play and turns to face Kaede. "Hi," she says, a little uncertainly, and then sees the expression on the priestess' face.

"Those clothes - "

Kagome laughs nervously. "Ahh, I get that a lot. It's just what we wear where I come from."

"When are you from?"

Kagome is sure she's misheard the question. "Pardon?"

The priestess' eyes are almost desperate - they're green, Kagome realizes, like the glass you find buried deep on coastal shores, smoothed by years of waves and the tide and the shifting of sands. She speaks again, and Kagome knows she heard right.

"_When are you from?_"

* * *

By the time Miroku and Sango make it back to the hut with Shippo and Kilala in tow, bringing with them wood and kindling, everyone is already sitting around the fire. Inuyasha is in his customary corner, the sheathed Tessaiga resting upright in his arms, eyes closed but ears alive and working. He's the first to know they've returned, and is already looking at the doorway when the _taijiya _and the monk duck inside.

"Miroku, Sango," Kagome says, sitting up with an eager look in her eyes. "You guys are just in time."

"What have we missed?" Sango asks, her gaze drifting to the woman sitting beside Kagome.

"Jo, this is Sango, the demon slayer I was telling you about," the girl says, stretching her hand out to gesture to Sango. "And that's Miroku - the one with the Wind Tunnel."

The woman stands and bows courteously to both of them, though it looks a little stiff and unpracticed. "I've heard a lot about you," she's saying when Inuyasha pipes up from the back.

"Yeah, that's because Kagome trusts too easily and runs her mouth."

"Inuyasha..."

He scowls defensively. "What? It's the truth!"

"Don't make me sit you - "

"AUGH!"

"_Sorry!_"

Sango shakes her head and turns her attention back to the woman in front of her. "Hello. You live here with Kaede? We've never seen you around before."

"You could say that," Jo admits, rubbing at her neck. "I've kind of been away for the last month or two. It seems the minute I step out of the village the entire world decides to fall apart."

"Jo's from the world I live in," Kagome blurts, suddenly appearing between them. "She's been stuck here for just over a year."

That turns out to be a great conversation starter. Soon they're all crowded around the fire with their respective bowls of what Inuyasha likes to call 'ninja food.' Jo just laughs a silly, almost sad laugh when she sees the container and has to wipe tears from her eyes when she takes her first bite. Kagome pats her arm comfortingly and is about to say something when Miroku looks up from his bowl.

"I will take the fact that you are still here to mean that you can't pass through the well Kagome uses."

"We tried," Jo says, staring down at the sea of ramen in her bowl, poking it listlessly with one chopstick. "She took me to the Bone Eater's Well, but... yeah. It didn't work."

"You'll find a way," Kagome says quietly. "We'll help, if we can. The Feudal Era doesn't lack in magic, that's for sure."

Jo nods, ready to start pretending she has an appetite again when her hands are taken from her. It's the monk. What in the world...?

"You must be feeling unimaginable grief at the thought of not being able to return to your rightful home," he says, entirely serious. His palms are warm and steady, and the fabric covering his right chafes comfortably over her knuckles. Still - too close. Way too close. "You may have to start anew, here in this unmerciful world of ours. I could help. I was wondering, then, if you would do me the honor of - "

And that's as far as he gets before the bottom of Sango's empty ramen bowl whacks him clean over the back of his head with a heavy _thok. _The demon slayer takes him by the collar and drags him over to her side of the fire, looking absolutely murderous.

"Would you like to finish that sentence?"

Miroku gingerly pokes at the sore spot on his head. "I won't, if it's all the same to you."

"Good."

Shippo hides his disbelief in a mouthful of noodles and leans in Kagome's direction when he's done chewing. "It took him a long while to get around to it this time. Maybe he's getting better about it?"

Kagome looks at Sango from the corner of her eye, trying not to smile. "One should hope so."

"Lady Jou, I couldn't help but notice - "

"_Watch it_."

"Ow, Sango, that _hurts!_"

"That's kind of the point."

Miroku yanks his arm out of her grasp regardless and continues. "That bracelet of yours. It's... quite strange."

Jo freezes, and then looks down at the object in question as though she'd forgotten it was there and it was unpleasant to remember. "Yeah. To say the very least. It's a family heirloom."

"Fascinating," Miroku says, picking up his food again. "Would it be too forward of me to ask of its history?"

Jo swallows and pauses, thinking about what to say. She can feel everyone's eyes on her. "When I first came here, I was so panicked and scared that I was sure I knew nothing about it. But the longer I thought on it, the more I remembered. My father used to tell me a story about an old family misfortune - about a man who made a deal with a demon and brought catastrophe down on his clan. I used to think it was just that - a story, but now..."

"Now you're not so sure," Miroku supplies, and Jo nods again. "Could you perhaps elaborate?"

"I'm not certain how much I remember is right," Jo says. She sets aside her bowl and leans back against the wall, trying to think about how to best convey her father's storytelling through her own inadequate words. She could never speak like he did. Touya had a magnetism about him that drew you in the minute he started talking. Attempting to emulate him almost feels like a dishonor.

So she tells them about the legend, starting from the very beginning; about how a small, very poor fisherman had saved what he thought to be a child from the hands of greedy debt-collectors, only to discover - to his infinite surprise - that it hadn't been a child, but a very old and weak kitsune instead. In return for his selfless and charitable act, the kitsune had gifted him with a blessed string of _juzu_ beads, a thing that would bring prosperity and long life to each of his kin as long as they remained virtuous and pure of heart.

The fisherman, overcome with emotion, had asked the little demon what he could possibly do to repay this magnificent and otherworldly gift; the kitsune had given him a warning instead. The String of Seven Days would retain all its heavenly qualities while it was still intact and in the possession of a human of with a good will - but should it come to be in the hands of one filled with avarice and pettiness, it would instead turn into a portent of bad luck.

Long generations after the fisherman had saved the kitsune, a man unhappy in station and mind came to be the keeper of the string. Frightened of death and almost driven mad by the idea of his own mortality, he'd shunned the string's abilities and turned to other places for the answers he sought. Late one night while the young nobleman lay in his bed, paralyzed with terror at thinking of the future, there came to him a specter in the dark. It spoke to him about promises of something greater than just longevity - eternal life and vigor. Power beyond his wildest imaginings. Wealth and splendor that would last past a lifetime.

The nobleman was overcome with longing. He asked the specter what he would have to do to have all these things.

Something infinitely simple, the specter answered him. He would only have to take one bead from the string kept in the family shrine. Just one. One bead as payment, and all the fortunes of the world would be his forever.

"And of course, he accepted," Sango says, making a sound of disgust when Jo nods slowly. "We can be so weak."

"It's not our place to judge, Sango," Miroku cuts in. "Weakness lives in every man. It is nothing to be ashamed of."

That earns him another vicious wallop.

"You're just saying that because you're a philandering creep!"

Jo smiles at the break in the tension and focuses her stare on the fire. "One detail about the story always weirded me out when I was a kid," she continues, lacing her fingers together. "My dad was always specific about the fact that the ghost that came to the young man wore the skin of a baboon - isn't that just... so unsettling? ...Guys?"

She lifts her head to see that everyone has stopped. Kaede's noodles are slipping from her chopsticks. Shippo is hugging Kilala, his little hands fisted deep in her fur, fear in his eyes. Even Inuyasha is listening intently now, head turned in her direction. Kagome is the one to break the silence by putting her bowl down and crossing her feet.

"It's a good thing you're sitting," she says. "It looks like it's my turn to tell a story now."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I don't think so."

"Great."

* * *

**a/n:** so... timeskip + character interaction + background  
+ shonen-style level-up sequence. fun fact - it's not a mistake that  
Jo's name is sometimes written as "Jou." there is a tiny difference  
in the pronunciation (slightly longer 'o' sound), and only  
some of the characters can catch it (like Kagome,  
who has had English classes before :) )


	4. stars and kappas

**4.**

"_In union there is strength."_

- Aesop

* * *

"But I don't want to, Master Jaken!"

"Cease with your fussing, girl, and come here. You and that unspeakable kimono _must _be washed."

She dodges the kappa's little grabbing hands with ease and ducks under the cover of one of Ah-Un's necks, hiding there in the shadow of the dragon while he bends his heads to graze once more.

"The water is so cold and you always pull at my hair," Rin says, sticking her heels out obstinately. "I don't want to."

"Don't be foolish," Jaken exclaims, his voice nearing the customary shriek. "This is non-negotiable, you pest. Now take your kimono off before I have to burn it off!"

"No."

"_Rin!_"

"I said no," she calls down to him as she scrambles up between Ah-Un's necks to sit in the saddle, her face buried in the dragon's mane. She makes an unhappy sound and waves her legs as though that will ward off the impending threat of the forced cleaning.

"You impertinent, troublesome, ungrateful whelp! Get down from there this instant! Of all the things to throw a tantrum about," Jaken says exasperatedly, shaking his staff at her, "it had to be _this_. What would Lord Sesshomaru say?"

"Jaken."

Rin peeks out from Ah-Un's fall of dark, silken hair to see the figure that has - apparently - appeared out of nowhere to stand only inches behind the kappa, intimidating and resplendent in the afternoon sun. The tassels and fringes of the belts of his colorful hakama are swaying gently in the breeze. She doesn't think she's ever seen him look less than perfect - except, of course, the time they first met, but Rin doesn't count that anymore. Master Jaken always gets a funny look on his face when he realizes a lot of what he's said has been totally audible. He has a problem with not being able to tell when he's talking aloud.

"...Y-yes, my lord?"

"Look after Rin and Ah-Un. I have things to attend to."

The kappa almost wilts in relief at the fact that the expected castigation is most obviously not fated to come down on him (and in most instances, that figure of speech has quite the literal meaning for Master Jaken). The lord turns on his heel and begins to walk away as Jaken bows and assures him that he will as always adhere to the commands to the best of his ability.

"Worry not, my lord, I won't let them out of my sight. I will - "

"Rin."

The girl looks up at the sound of her name, hoping he won't be saying what she thinks he will.

"There is a hot spring to the east not far from here. Listen to Jaken."

And then he's off, being carried away by a cloud of glowing _youki_, the long tail of his silver hair flying in the wind like a battlement banner. Master Jaken is wailing about something like how he hopes Lord Sesshomaru will be back soon and several other lamenting regrets along the lines of the scorned, most-trusted vassal being left behind. Rin sighs and slides from Ah-Un's back, landing lightly on her feet.

Perhaps the reminder that she has to listen to Master Jaken will pull him out of his funk - being in charge usually does that to him.

"Master Jaken..."

"I've served you faithfully for so many years, my lord! Am I not worthy to stand at your side through thick and thin? _My looooord!_"

This is going to be a long wait.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want to just... stick with us?"

Jo smiles at Kagome's question and shakes her head. They're about fifteen minutes out of Misatomori, on foot as always, and the day is a beautiful one to be walking, if a bit cold.

"It's okay. Honestly. You're heading in the direction of a village I need to check up on, but further than that, you won't have to keep an eye on me. I've been doing this for little over a year... I've had time to practice."

Kagome frowns as she puts her foot to the pedal of her bike. "I guess I can't picture traveling on my own now. I've been with the others for so long that just the idea makes me uncomfortable."

"I'm not really a team player, trust me," Jo says, keeping her pace quick enough to keep up with Kagome's bicycle. "Besides, I get the feeling that your boyfriend doesn't really like me."

"He's not my _boyfriend_!" Kagome explodes, a little too loudly for her liking. Miroku looks back at them from the front, eyebrow raised, and Kagome feels her cheeks go warm with embarrassment. Why does she always have to screw things up? She looks down at the ground passing beneath her bicycle and has to focus on it for a few moments before she's adequately calm.

"Inuyasha takes a while to warm up to anyone," she says quietly in afterthought, and Jo's eyes flick back to her. "That's just the way he is. He's slow to trust, but when he does finally open up his loyalty is... unshakeable."

"Okay, Don Juan," Jo replies, making the scarlet that just died down in Kagome's cheeks to flare up full-force again. "I guess it was just surprising. Dogs usually love me."

She has to laugh at that, even if she catches the angered twitching of Inuyasha's ears in front of her. "You know a lot about them?"

Jo shrugs. "I guess. I'm - I _was_ a canine behaviorist. Therapy and rehabilitation, training, behavior adjustment and all of that. I miss it a lot."

"I can imagine," Kagome replies, not really knowing what to say. She's free to come and go as she wishes between the worlds of the past and present. She can't imagine being _stuck_. Well, she can try - she's thought about it before, what it'd be like, living here, but she always finds her mind circling back to home. But Jo doesn't have that choice. She's had to make do with what she can find here, and eke out a living amongst the scarce and the harsh. Away from family, friends, and everything she's ever known.

"I'm still trying to register the fact a childhood story of mine is actually real," Jo says, tilting her head to look at the sky. Her hair is loose today, and it falls just short of the small of her back, thick and dark and the color of autumn chestnuts just ripened. "The guy in the baboon suit was always something that Dad used to scare me into being good. I never thought I'd be... hunting him down. Jesus. It almost sounds stupid to say."

"You'll get used to it," Kagome assures her. "It felt weird for me too, at first. But after you see the kind of harm Naraku can do, it makes things a lot more real."

"You can say that again," Jo murmurs, lacing her hands together. "I had no idea what was causing the surge of demons in the countryside until I came back. They've been gaining courage. Too much of it."

"That's why I keep saying you should come with us," the schoolgirl says, still not dissuaded. "This is no time for you to be going it alone."

"Persistent, aren't you?" Jo laughs. "I'm only going to be stopping over for a night or two at the village I was talking about and then I'm heading right back here. Half of being a healer in these times is common sense. It's difficult to make them let go of their superstitions. My features don't help. If you guys came in behind me with Inuyasha in tow... I don't know if the uniform could make them respect me."

"I understand," Kagome says, frowning. "But it doesn't mean I have to like it. Just... promise to be careful, okay? You're not allowed to get hurt before I get you some proper snacks."

And Jo laughs again, genuine and honest, the sound of her voice clear and ringing. "I'll hold you to that. Chocolate detox _sucked_. And coffee. And orange juice. Oh, God, what I'd do for my multi-fruit blends." She groans in longing and drags a hand down her face.

"Ugh, that must be horrible. I love my sweets too much to let them go."

"It's all tea here," Jo says, stretching her arms high above her head. "I mean, it's a nice drink, don't get me wrong, but I think I've downed at least half of Japan's worth in vegetation since I came here. Since water isn't always exactly - uh - _safe_."

Kagome makes a face at that and feels a shudder run down her back. "Bottled water. I'll bring some of that too."

"And who's going to carry all these wondrous, lovely things?" Jo says, and watches as Kagome makes a thoughtful pause.

"Inuyasha will help. Won't you, Inuyasha?"

"I'm not your pack animal!"

"That means yes."

* * *

They leave her at the village by setting sun and dying light. Kagome hugs her so hard she thinks she hears something between her ribs pop, and Sango had done the same after she'd bopped Miroku between the eyes with Hiraikotsu to keep him at bay. The goodbyes were not long, though Jo hates them all the same, and even Inuyasha spares a glance in her direction.

She does not even stay the night she'd promised Kagome - the villagers are restless and discontent, even after she tends to the children in their huts dedicated to the sick and the elderly, the dying and the crippled, even when she sits at the side of the oldest elder and rubs salve into his bed sores and props him up so that he can breathe more easily. She knows when she is not wanted: it is a feeling as sharp as a knife, and the settlement is full of it. She is continually surprised by the duality of the people in these lands.

Some of them welcome her with open arms, with enthusiastic questions and smiles; others purify things in her wake and whisper when her back is turned and they think she cannot hear them. She knows she unsettles them, she who looks familiar enough to be recognizable but foreign enough to be infinitely strange to those who have known nothing but their own people from day zero.

The villagers offer her a meager dinner and after finishing it she quietly gathers her things and leaves the way she came. She would rather sleep under a tree at risk from all the _yokai _in Japan than rest under the roof of people she knows could wish her harm if pushed to it. The path is visible enough, even in the night, and she travels a way on before she decides she's walked enough and settles under a rocky outcrop, feeling spent in spirit and far from home.

_What else is new_, she thinks to herself as she crosses her arms and tries to occupy herself with star-gazing.

She's almost dozing when she feels it - an uncomfortable, tugging pinprick at the edge of her consciousness, like the awareness one has of a fly before they hear it buzzing. Something's not right. Her hand creeps to the edge of her bow. The feathers of her arrows are soft against her knuckles. She suddenly misses Kagome's good cheer and Inuyasha's abrasive, loud humor, Sango's quiet surety and Miroku's insistent manner. Why had she disagreed about accompanying them, again?

A creeping rustle starts from the bushes to her left. She can hear the rasp of scale on grass. Snake demon? She shuts her eyes and reaches out with her senses, willing the pulse of her spiritual power to a calm, almost soundless hum. Calm. Calm, or it will notice her. Demons are lucky in one way - they are born with innately keen senses, and so most of them take their use as granted or natural, the way one thinks of moving their arm or leg. Humans don't have it that easy. It takes years of practice for most average priestesses to become as sensitive as greater _yokai_ in the ways of perception.

Good thing she's a fast learner, she supposes, though she still doesn't feel quite comfortable with being called a priestess. She's nowhere near as pure or as virtuous as the title commands its holder to be, but wearing the clothes and exercising (some) of the powers often lends her the social maneuverability her odd appearance might otherwise inhibit.

Don't look a gift _miko _in the mouth, she thinks as the thing slithers past her and into the forest. She's content to let it go only for the sake of not disturbing anything else in the area until she hears a high scream that sounds nothing like any demon she knows of.

_A child_?

The low, thin branches of saplings and little trees slap her in the face as she runs through the underbrush, drawing two arrows and nocking one. She stumbles through the foliage, following the beacon of malevolent _youki_ until she breaks past the cover of the trees and into a clearing hemmed in by bushes and whispering long-grass. The snake is larger than she anticipated. It towers well above some of the treetops, its red eyes trailing points of scarlet light whenever it moves.

There's another beast in the clearing, a two-headed lizard - _dragon_? - outfitted with reins and a saddle with a little girl sitting on its back. The bright orange of her kimono is evident even in the dark. Something small and short is moving around the dragon's legs, but she can't focus on it for too long because the snake abruptly turns its eyes on her. It stares at her for only the length of a heartbeat and then lunges, the grass parting for its glossy body.

The twigs on the ground tug at her shirt as she rolls out of the way. The earth is hard on her back but she's up before it can pin her down. No time to draw.

She just slams the arrow down point-first into the nearest part of the snake and it screeches in pain as the holy energy around the arrowhead burns a hole straight through to the other side. The scent of burning flesh fills her nostrils as the snake wraps the end of its tail around her and squeezes - she gasps and feels something in her side pop before agony lances up her chest through her ribs. Bow and arrows fall from her nerveless hands as the pressure tightens. She has to break free - quick.

"What luck," the demon says breathily, the tip of its black tongue brushing at the underside of her jaw. "A _miko_ for an appetizer and a child for dessert. Marveloussss."

She forces her hands into the first _mudra_, ignoring the discomfort and the little black dots that have broken out across her vision. "_Rin_," she says under her breath, and then the rest follow easily. "_Pyo. To. Sha. Sai - "_

"Sss, what are you doing?"

Just a little more.

" - _Jin. Retsu. Zai. Zen."_

The penultimate cut makes electricity spark over the demon's skin. It ripples down the length of its dark green coils, around its head and over its eyes. She hears the spark and feels the hum of energy deep in her breast that means it's time. The snake thrashes as the links of holy energy tighten over its scales.

"Sssstop," it says, whining, but she doesn't listen.

"_Kai!_" she finishes, palm facing outward, and her eyes are still open when the orb of purifying energy in her hand expands just a little - and then explodes outward, brilliant blue light moving in every direction all at once like a miniature supernova. She feels the snake melt away with her strength, and when she falls with her back to the ground amongst the drifting dust that is all that's left of the demon, she doesn't have the energy to move an inch.

Well, at least the hungry monster is gone. That's a step forward.

She's about to go to sleep right there among the grass when the face of the little girl appears above her. Her brown eyes are wide and the whites are almost bright in the dark.

"Are you alright?" Jo asks her, embarrassed by the croak of her voice.

"Are _you_ alright?" the girl says, her thin eyebrows hiking far up on her forehead.

"I've been better," Jo admits. She tries moving her hand and then decides it's too tiring. Nope. Just going to lie here till sunrise. That sounds good.

"You saved us," the girl tells her, now smiling. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," Jo says. She's having a conversation with a child in the middle of a dark forest and there's a dragon standing two feet away but she can't bring herself to feel surprised any longer. All that's missing is a talking tree or the token guardian spirit. God, her head hurts.

"What's your name? I'm Rin, and that's Master Jaken, and _that's _Ah-Un."

A yell drifts over to them through the clearing. "_Foolish girl_! Come away from there right now!"

"My name is Jo," she rasps, fixing her eyes on the stars in the sky. That's beautiful, at least.

"Jou. That's a pretty name."

"No, _Jo_. Like Joey Tribbiani."

"Joooo-u."

Jo sighs. "Good enough."

"_Are you listening to me_?"

Apparently not, since Rin is still bent over her. The girl looks at her for a little bit longer before she stands up resolutely and flops down right next to her so their shoulders are touching.

"Oh, wow. The sky is so clear tonight!"

The wonder in the girl's voice makes her smile. "It is quite great, isn't it?"

"Yes! Master Jaken once told me that all the stars have names, but then he started talking the way he always does and I stopped listening. He does that a lot. Talking, that is."

Judging by how the thing Rin calls Master Jaken is going on in the background, Jo is willing to believe her.

"Why are you out here on your own?" The dragon and the angry shouty half-pint don't count, she thinks.

"I'm not by myself," Rin says as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. "We're just waiting for Lord Sesshomaru to get back."

"That sounds official," Jo murmurs. "You were still alone, though. What would have happened if I hadn't come along?"

And against what odds, too.

"Master Jaken would have protected us," Rin answers without missing a beat. "He's very loud, but he can fight. Ah-Un is good too!"

She sounds far too not-worried for being a kid in the middle of nowhere crawling with vicious supernatural creatures that love having human child for a snack. How long is it going to be before she can move again? This 'can't move because too tired to' thing is getting very old very quickly. Kaede had always cautioned her that using purifying seals before she had time to prepare for them would exhaust her. Unfortunately, 'exhaustion' doesn't seem too adequate to describe the fatigue she feels.

But hey, the grass feels more comfortable than she'd have taken it for.

"So this lord is your father?"

Rin quiets at that, thoughtful. "I want him to be."

"Ah," Jo says. "Okay. Dads are great."

"What's your father like, Lady Jou?"

"He was a really great guy. He loved reading and singing and being a great big idiot," Jo says, folding her hands over her chest.

"'Was?'"

Christ, the kid is sharp.

"Yeah. He passed away recently," she says softly, and Rin goes silent again.

"My real mama and papa died too. I'm sorry."

"I am as well," Jo replies. "Hey. Your Master Jaken's quiet now."

"He is. That usually happens when I ignore him for a while," Rin says, giggling under her breath. "He has a lot to say, but most of the time he doesn't know how to say it. It's alright, though."

"I guess it is," the not-really-priestess says. "...My butt is numb."

And as Rin laughs, she thinks maybe it wasn't _too_ bad a kind of luck that led her here.

* * *

**a/n**: you all knew it was coming, but I can at least promise the interactions are going to be original (it's only the billionth fic where Rin gets saved while Sesshomaru is off gallivanting and being majestic). and now for technicalities - I've always thought that things about the Inuyasha timeline were a little rushed especially Kagome's development + decision, so... expect a little AUing and some extension/distortion of known events. Jo's involvement in the storyline begins in what would be early January 1997, directly after Kagura's death. *sniffs noisily* I'll let you go now. Thanks for all the encouragement! It really means a lot. c:


	5. the reluctant everything

**5.**

"_Wisdom begins in wonder."_

- Socrates

* * *

The kappa keeps checking to see if she's left or not.

The stars burn bright, but Jo still stays leaned against the trunk of the tree she'd dragged herself to when lying in the grass had gotten too cold. The crickets begin to sing and Rin falls asleep curled up inside the curve of Ah-Un's flank, her head pillowed against the saddlebags, but Jo still remains seated - to Jaken's great and easily visible ire. Jo dozes off twice and the night grows deeper still, and when she wakes up Ah-Un has moved closer to the copse of trees, and she does not yet move. Jaken grumbles, turns on his side, drives his staff into the ground, and stares grumpily into the dark.

She's truly fallen asleep when the sun rises and the copse fills with light, but she stirs at the warmth gathering on her hands. She watches the rest of the dawn with a quiet appreciation she'd forgotten about during her modern life - you have to stop and look at the things around you here because there's nothing else to do. She'd been so focused on living fast and living _right_ that she'd lost sight of so many other very important things. The thought scares her. She doesn't want to get attached to this place. She still wants to go home. Or she _wants _to want to go home.

Blast it all.

Jo buries her hands in her sleeves and stays very still as the kappa at the far side of the copse comes around. She waits as he turns around, rubbing his goggling yellow eyes with one tired little hand, and is midway through a yawn when he catches sight of her.

"Why are you _still here_?" he screeches, and she's sure any birds within a three mile radius have heard and been frightened awake by his voice. "Every time I open my eyes you're just - sitting there! _Vile mortal!_ When will you take your leave?"

"You keep going on like that and you'll have a stroke before noon," Jo says, laying her bow across her feet. "And keep your voice down. You're going to wake Rin."

"I take orders from no one but Lord Sesshomaru!"

"Yeah, that guy. I'm going to stick around until he gets here. I told you last night, I'm not going to leave Rin alone like that, not after what I saw."

"Rin is Lord Sesshomaru's ward and she is under _my _protection!" Jaken explodes, waving his staff furiously. "You disrespect his very existence by remaining. Persistent wretch! Simpleton! _Eyesore!_"

"For such a small thing, you sure are loud," she says, blinking at the volume. "Insulting me isn't going to make me dissolve, you know. You can scream till you're blue in the beak but I'm going to sit right here until either this lord of yours shows up or the goddamn sky falls on my head."

"Lady Jou...?"

Jo perks up at the sleepy question and smiles brightly when she sees Rin move and sit upright in the cage of Ah-Un's arms. The dragon is startlingly affectionate for something so large and scaly and... supernatural. It's let Rin sleep at its side all night and always seems to be there when the little girl stumbles, ready to catch her with a helpful, nudging snout. Kind of like a loving dog. Except ten times bigger and heavier. And far more intimidating. And not a mammal at all. Okay, so maybe a dog wasn't the best comparison ever.

"Good morning, Rin," Jo says as Rin yawns. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, my lady," Rin replies happily. "Ahhh, I'm so hungry."

And then Jaken is bouncing between them, leaping a foot off the ground each time he jumps, almost puce-colored with rage.

"_Stop talking as if I'm not here_!"

"Good morning to you too, Master Jaken!"

_Nothing dampens this girl's spirits, does it? _Jo thinks as Rin approaches the kappa and grabs him by the hands to swing him in an impromptu dance. Behind them, Ah-Un stretches like a cat, the mouths of both his heads gaping. They're all a strange, mishmashed family that somehow fits together, even if it is a little odd. What a bizarre group. She laughs when Jaken falls flat on his face and only stops after Rin skips over him and comes to a halt before her.

"Are you going to stay with us?" Rin asks, and Jo coughs in surprise at the question. Packing no punches, are we?

"Probably not, little one," Jo says. _And there's the frown_, she tells herself when Rin's joyful expression falls in on itself like a souffle suddenly losing precious air.

"But why?" Rin says, her lips pulling downward in an unhappy line. "You can fight and you're not scared of Master Jaken and Lord Sesshomaru needs a grown up friend. He's been so sad and angry ever since that sorceress died - "

"Stop!" Jaken shrieks, suddenly appearing behind Rin, his eyes so wide they could fall out of his skull. "Don't divulge information like that for no reason! You loose-lipped child, I ought to - "

He doesn't get any farther because a pebble whizzes past Rin's cheek and hits him squarely in the face with force enough to topple him and send him flying backward. Jo waits for a second or two before she's satisfied that he won't be getting up soon and turns back to Rin.

"Finally, some quiet," she says with a sigh of relief, and smiles a little when Rin reaches out to brush her fingertips against Jo's hair. "What were you saying, dear?"

"I just... you can go if you really want to, I guess," Rin murmurs, looking down at her feet. "I just thought we could be friends."

"We already are, aren't we?" Jo says, lifting a careful hand to duck Rin under the chin. "Me staying or going doesn't change that. I promise to stick around until your lord gets back."

Rin looks at her cautiously from beneath the jagged fall of her bangs. Good Lord, the girl needs a haircut. How long has she been following this Sesshomaru fellow around? She needs shoes, too. She also needs a home - not to be wandering around the countryside aimlessly while the person who's supposed to be her guardian apparently _abandons _her for long stretches of time to the care of a screechy, short-tempered amphibious grouch. Jo doubts the kappa would have been able to adequately defend Rin if she hadn't come along, and then - and then the unthinkable would have happened. It's a miracle she's lasted this long.

No, Jo tells herself. _This is none of your business. You are_ not_ going to get mixed up in this._

"You promise?" Rin says, her hands clenching at the fabric of Jo's _hakama._

"I most definitely and absolutely promise," Jo assures her in her most solemn and priestess-like tone, and then holds out her pinky finger. "Here. Let's make a _pinky_ promise."

"A pinky... promise?"

Right. Probably hasn't been coined yet. Anachronisms ahoy.

"Yeah. Here - give me your hand. You put your finger out like this, and then I go... like this," Jo explains, hooking her pinky around RIn's. They hold fast for a few seconds. "And done. Now I've made a binding vow. It's the power of the pinky promise."

She knows Rin is too smart to take that as seriously as other kids would, but it seems to work because Rin laughs and hugs her as though she's known Jo for her entire life. She looks down at the head full of fluffy, tangled hair that belongs to Rin, and hesitantly links her arms around the little girl's back. She almost feels scared at the surge of fierce protectiveness that comes over her. Rin is so small and so _young_. For the millionth time, Jo asks herself what such a girl is doing out here on her own without the guarantee of at least a village's protection. What kind of idiot does it take to make a kid that's ten years old _at most_ follow them around demon-infested countryside?

Maybe once she sees this lordling the bad first impression will dissipate. She has to hope. She shouldn't judge. Open mind, she tells herself.

"Hey, Rin," she says, and the girl looks up at her with thoughtful brown eyes. Rin has lashes like a cow's, God. Ugh. Smart, precocious, _and_ cute.

"What?"

"Do you want me to teach you a game that people play back where I come from?"

Rin springs to life as though she's been touched by a livewire. "Sure!" she says, the word practically bursting from her. "Maybe when we're done, can I... braid your hair?"

The request takes Jo off guard but after a few moments she realizes Rin only asked so quickly is because she's probably used to refusal.

"Of course. It's been needing a little something lately," she says, and her stomach lurches at the satisfaction Rin's toothy smile causes inside her. This is bad. This is very, very bad. She shouldn't care.

"Master Jaken can help us gather flowers," Rin continues, totally oblivious. She rushes over to the kappa, who's resigned himself to sitting glumly by one of Ah-Un's feet with the longest face someone who has a beak could ever possibly make. "Master Jaken, Master Jaken! Would you - "

"No."

"But you haven't even heard what I was going to say yet!"

"The answer's still no."

* * *

The copse becomes pleasantly warm in the afternoon. Jo teaches Rin hopscotch with the help of a sharp stick and some very crude ground-drawings.

After the third round Rin pulls Jaken to his feet and pulls him along, trying to teach him the words of the rhyme Jo's made up to help her keep track of the steps. He shouts and squeals and generally acts as though playing a mortal game will be the end of him. His acting improves considerably when he turns around to find Jo watching him with a handful of pebbles held loosely in her hand. He doesn't escape one when he tries smacking Rin in reproach for tugging at his tunic, and Jo almost feels sorry for him when she hears the sharp sound of the pebble hitting his hard little skull.

The feelings instantly evaporate when he whaps Rin over the head all but five minutes later. It is no coincidence that when she gets up to suggest to Rin that they take a break that she tramples him underfoot as she passes the hopscotch grid.

Rin weaves some sort of wildflower in her hair- it's purple and has four pointed petals. They look like little violet stars, waving there on their thin stems, and she's surprised at the ease with which Rin twists and ties them into flower crowns for the Ah-Un. The dragon accepts the decorations with grace and keeps grazing (something she still can't get over watching happen), whereas Jaken has to be chased and pinned down for the iniquity of the flower crown to be forced upon him.

She laughs so hard at the sight of a circlet of shirane-aoi falling over Jaken's brow that Rin reprimands her for shaking and tells her not to move because "It's going to ruin all my work!"

Jo apologizes most sincerely and sits very still from there on in, not budging even when leaves fall over her nose and make her want to sneeze. Rin sits back when she's done with a grin on her face, clapping petals from her hands.

"You look beautiful, Lady Jou!"

"I'll take your word for it, Rin," Jo says, feeling the braid sway between her shoulders when she stretches. "It's because of all your hard work."

"I didn't have to do much," Rin replies, twiddling her thumbs. "Your hair is so long. Not as long as Lord Sesshomaru's, but - close. And it's so thick and pretty... I wish mine were the same."

Jo reaches out to ruffle the mess of Rin's fringe. "Yours can be like that too. You just need to watch out for it a little bit," she assures the girl, her fingers catching on the band in Rin's hair. "It's a just a tad tangled, but just as pretty and strong. Maybe even more."

"...Really?" Rin says, looking at Jo from beneath her lashes.

"Really really," Jo repeats, and pulls the girl into her lap. She digs her fingers under the tie in Rin's hair and pulls it loose. "See - you just need to clear up the knots..." Jo combs out the snags with careful and gentle pressure and then gathers a lock to replace the tie around. "You have to brush it every day and keep it clean and it'll grow well and faster. But you need to take care of it or else it won't change."

"No one's ever said that to me before," Rin mumbles, and touches her hair with reverence you find in a shrine, not someone who's just grown out of being a toddler. "My mom... used to... but she... the bad men took her away before she could teach me more."

She considers the sad look on Rin's face before she takes the girl by the shoulders and hugs her fiercely. "I'm sure she would be very proud of you, Rin," Jo says and knows that she's not going to be forgetting this little girl any time soon. "I can teach you anything you want."

_Stupid, stupid! Why are you making promises you may not be able to keep?_

"I would love that!" Rin exclaims, hooking her arms around Jo's neck and hugging back. "It gets so lonely here sometimes, even with Master Jaken and Ah-Un around."

Jo shoots the glowering kappa on the other side of the copse a withering look. "I can imagine," is all she says, and then Rin settles down next to her.

She's taught Rin tic-tac-toe and I-Spy by the time the sun reaches its zenith and the wind in the copse changes noticeably - the _youki _sweeps in from all sides like an insane tsunami. It's so suffocating and powerful and titanic in magnitude that she has trouble breathing when it first manifests, and she watches with wide eyes as Rin, apparently not affected at all, pops up and out of her lap like clockwork so she can run to the middle of the copse to greet the descending shadow. Jo is getting to her feet when he lands in a whirl of silk and dust, the grass bowing and parting at the touch of his boots.

And then Jaken is racing past her at a speed she did _not _know he could achieve, yelling jovially at the top of his lungs.

"My lord, you've returned! My lord, where have you been? Lord Sesshomaru, we were so worried!"

_You were? You seemed more preoccupied with wiping me off the face of the earth. _

"My lord, will you not say anything? I've been waiting - " is what he manages to get out before a tassel on the side of his lord's hakama seems to take on a life of its own, snake upward, and slaps him magnificently across the forehead. Kappa down for what must be the hundredth time today. Ouch.

That's when she realizes that despite Rin's pleasant chatter (she's yammering on about playmates and friends and new games and flower crowns and boy, can the tyke talk fast!), the demon that had pretty much literally fallen out of the sky moments before is staring at her. And not interestedly at all, she may add. She's seen friendlier looks on dogs that spent half their lives trying to kill anything that so much as breathed in their presence. He's intimidating and strong of stature, with a face that could make an artist weep with joy: cheekbones, high, defined, and _striped_, imperially-arched eyebrows, a stern mouth, and eyes the color of brandy in sunlight.

He looks almost... human, but there's something about him that stops her from making the comparison. Uncanny valley, she thinks. Too pretty to be human. It's in the lines of his face. There's a quality in its symmetry that makes her keenly uncomfortable, the way a person feels when they stare at something that's too perfect of an imitation. He doesn't _just_ look human. He's almost sublime. And it is the most disturbing thing she has ever had to look at.

_She wasn't kidding about the hair, _she tells herself when the lord looks down shortly at the girl standing by his side and some lonely strands of the white fall of what Jo assumes to be his equivalent of a mane slips over his shoulder and comes to rest at the side of his face.

Jo would never call herself an expert on demons or anything of the sort, but the time she has spent learning about them she's noticed that there's generally an unwritten rule about all of them - the closer to humanoid the demon, the more intelligent. The more dangerous. Or, in Inuyasha's case, proof of human heritage.

_So what does that make this guy? _

Knowing her luck, it probably means this particular demon could rip her head off without even lifting a finger. Marvelous. She's still watching him when he lifts his head to turn his gaze on her again, and the movement makes his pointed ears peek out from under the sheet of his hair. Wonderful. Out of all the demons in the entirety Japan who have creepy vassals, she has to pick the one that looks the most like something that Lord of the Rings just puked up. Christ almighty.

"What are you doing here?" he says, and for a moment she doesn't know how to respond. She's too caught up in looking at Rin's expectant face and trying to remember how to speak... and then the question sinks in.

_Why you pompous, entitled..._

"I was protecting the charge you left behind," she replies, resting one hand on the sash of her _hakama_. "Your kappa was nearly the entrée to a snake demon's starter course, and he'd have had little girl for dinner if I hadn't been walking by."

The callous idiot doesn't even react. He just... raises one of those wonderfully-shaped eyebrows as though what she's saying doesn't make so much of an iota of sense.

"I highly doubt it," he responds, his tone almost _bored_.

"No, you're right," she amends quickly, raising her hands in mock defeat. "I camped out here for an entire day and a half for your benefit, not the adorable little girl's. You've seen through me."

Now a small wrinkle appears between the immaculate brows. So he _can _get irritated. "Your insincerity is unflattering and unamusing. You tire me. Begone."

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin says, leaping out in front of him. "Lady Jou is so fun and she teaches me new games and we've been talking and she's good for Master Jaken - "

"_What_?!"

" - and she's so brave, just like you. Please, let her stay! I promise we'll be very quiet and good and if we bother you she can go. Just a little while longer. Please? _Please?_"

She observes initially with apprehension and then growing surprise when the lord tilts his head down to Rin. He stares for a while at her with something Jo can't identify until he looks up at Jo again (and _that_ is disgust, no mistake there) before he abruptly straightens and turns on his heel, pebbles and soil crunching under his sole.

"Do as you wish."

Jaken almost explodes with displeasure. He's squawking out a complaint while Rin makes her way over to Jo and throws herself against the priestess' legs.

"Lady Jou! Isn't this great? You're going to come with us!"

She'd like nothing more than to pick up and go in the opposite direction, but she can't very well say that. It would break Rin's heart.

"Yeah, baby bean," she says quietly, raising her eyes to look at the back of the lord making himself scarce between the trees. Where the hell is he going? "Just great..."

* * *

**a/n: **thank you guys for all the ongoing support and lovely reviews. they're so heartwarming to read. so... here's the meetup + predictable emotional Rin blackmail. so glad I'm finally writing him! intro is finally over. not edited because I have a migraine the size of Inu no Taisho stomping around in my head. hope you enjoy.


	6. clifford and the big learning curve

**6.**

"_I am patient with stupidity,_

_but not with those who are proud of it."_

– Edith Stillwell

* * *

She's amazed that Rin hasn't begun talking to the back of her good lord's head, since that's all they practically see of him.

Jo isn't silly enough to consider herself part of the group (though she is quite silly in general, she will admit) despite the generous invitation. She's fallen into the role of babysitter, she supposes, even though she wonders each night when she falls asleep if she should be staying with them. What in the world is she doing? She has absolutely no idea. When was the last time she had no idea about anything she was doing? A good ten years, at least. But she can't just leave.

It's been an entire two weeks of total discomfort, and she's yet to convince herself that following around a full-blooded demon (about whose goals and motivations she knows zilch about, she may add) is a good idea – she's pretty sure the amount of strange and weirdness she's had in the last few months of her life are all she'll ever need until she goes six feet under. She often finds herself staring at the bracelet. It hasn't burned her in a long time. Maybe it's because she hasn't quite thought about it that's made it go silent. Every now and then she tries pulling it off again though nothing changes.

That's the definition of insanity, isn't it? Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results? Comforting thought, that.

No surprise she's here on the Magic Dragon Schoolbus, then. If anything, she'll stay to keep an eye on Rin. The amount of times she's had to stop Rin from doing something simple common sense would advise against is getting to be a stupidly high.

"Whoa, hey, don't go in there with your kimono on!"

"Uh, Rin, I don't think those are going to be very filling..."

"Maybe it's not such a good idea to run around here without shoes?"

By the end of those two weeks she's exhausted with the effort. It's so _tiring _keeping up with a kid. Dogs? Fine. Adults? Sort of fine. But kids? Good God, she's kind of ready to forgive her mother for not really being a mom at all. If this is anything like what it means to be a parent, she's just about ready to throw in the towel. That doesn't mean she's going to let Rin get into things that might hurt her, though. That's where Jo thinks she's different from her mother. She'd never be able to sit back and watch while Rin tries to figure things out on her own.

The girl's barely nine, for Christ's sake, and she's already pretty much a girl scout. She knows about edible mushrooms Jo hasn't ever _heard _of. The fact that she has to scrounge around for things to eat without any help from Sir Padfoot or the screamy kappa makes Jo's blood boil. She'd never say anything aloud, of course, since for some reason Rin seems to hold both aforementioned jerks in very high esteem, but good heavens, it is _excruciating _to watch.

One evening after Don Quixote has called it a day (which he indicates by simply stopping and going "We camp here," like the arrogant priss he is), Rin is preparing herself for her nightly bush browsing when Jo stops her.

"I have an idea," she says as she clasps her hands around Rin's.

"What is it, Lady Jou?"

And still with the 'lady' business. She'll deal with that later. "How about you sit back for once and let _me_ try and cook something up instead of crawling through bushes and scraping up God-knows-what on your lovely kimono, hm?"

"You can... do that?"

"What, cook?" Jo looks at her thoughtfully. "I... ah, guess I'm not too bad at it. It'll be edible, and it'll be warm. Better than cold berries, right?"

Rin gives her one of those larger-than-life smiles, the ones that look like they have the light of the entire sun in them. It doesn't take much to please her, does it?

"That would be wonderful!"

"Marvelous," Jo says and then turns to stare at her pack. What has she got in there that she could use? She supposes she could soak some of the dried meat and embellish it... she does have some salt that she hasn't used yet, and there are enough tubers around here to make some good additions to the sort of stew. It won't be gourmet-caliber fare, but at least it'll be a change from fruits that often taste like dirt instead of berries.

"Can I help?" Rin asks, eyes wide and expectant.

"Sure, bud," Jo answers. "Go ahead and fetch the little pot I have in my pack, fill it with some water, and put it over the fire. Think you can manage that?"

"Yes!" Rin exclaims, and rushes off to do her bidding without so much as a lick of hesitation. What a doll.

Jaken doesn't utter even a peep – maybe he realizes that if this goes right he'll get some actual food out of the deal for once. Ah-Un stopped his evening grazing a while ago, and is sat by the fire with his legs turned inward, looking like a gigantic cat curled up on a windowsill. Darth Vader, as usual, is watching everything going on from his vantage point at the base of the largest trunk in the clearing they've chosen as their camping spot tonight. Does he always look like he's about to expire from boredom? He may be pretty, but God, what a total buzzkill. All that moves are his eyes, luminous and vigilant, as he follows Rin's path from Jo's pack, to the stream, and back to the fire.

Why is he letting her tag along? She doesn't have any illusions about how crazily powerful he is. She felt enough the day his _youki_ nearly buffeted her flat. Maybe he's just humoring Rin. He seems to have a soft spot for her (not that she blames him, since it'd be really difficult not to, because Rin is just about the most adorable thing since evolution decided to spit out puppies).

"What now, Lady Jou?" Rin says, jumping in place like she does when she doesn't know what to do next.

"We wait for the water to boil," Jo says as she sits herself down on the ground and starts rifling through her pack.

The girl frowns, her lips pursing. "Lord Sesshomaru always says that too. Why isn't the water good on its own? I drink from streams..."

"Running water is normally clean," Jo explains. _If you live in Feudal Japan, that is. _"Nothing has time to sit for too long when you get the water from a river or a stream, or even a brook. Never drink from still water. Ne-ver."

"It usually smells funny," Rin agrees and scrunches up her nose. "And sometimes there are green things on top. Is it poison?"

Jo considers that for a moment. "Of a sort. What lives in stuff like still water, or an open wound, or food that's been left outside too long are called _bacteria_. Germs. They're these tiny, tiny little – uh... – _creatures_ that cause sickness and infection. And there are ways to kill them. You just need to know how."

"How come I never see them?" Rin says as Jo pulls the dried meat she's wrapped in linen from her pack.

"You need a really special tool to see something that small," Jo says, thinking about how surreal it is to be explaining rudimentary hygiene science to a girl that will have been dead for over five hundred years by the time Jo Akiyama is born on a rainy March morning. Does the fact that she's here now mean that she could meet her ancestors? Could she screw something up and stop herself from ever being born? How could she possibly know which actions might endanger her future creation? And if that _did _happen, would she just... disappear? Or would she live out the rest of her life here and just not exist when 1987 rolls around? And if _that_ happens, does that mean there are _two _1987s, one in which she was born, and one in which she was never even a speck on the horizon of cosmic probability?

Yikes. That's a bit too Doctor Who for her.

"Where I come from," she goes on to distract herself from the disturbing thoughts, "people called scientists have discovered a lot about how the world works. It's saved many lives and made medicine a million times better."

"That sounds really nice," Rin murmurs. "Have they... found a way to... stop people from – dying?"

She has to halt in the middle of what she's doing and turn to look at Rin. The girl has her hands clasped behind her back and is staring down at her feet as though she knows the question she's asked doesn't have an easy answer. Jo has to think about what to say for a moment before she picks the meat up again and begins unwrapping it.

"No. They haven't. I don't think we ever will," she says as she tips the cured meat into the pot. "Death is a part of life just as much as birth. Sometimes things happen that we can't stop, and it's okay to feel angry about them, but it doesn't mean it's your fault. It's kind of like rain, or sunshine, or snow. You can't do anything about it except change the way you feel about it."

"That's not fair," Rin complains as she sits herself down across the fire.

"Life isn't fair, baby girl," Jo says, smiling tiredly. "And most of the time it sucks. But the good more than makes up for the bad." _At least, that's what people say to comfort themselves. _

"You're very wise, Lady Jou."

At that she laughs so hard she nearly tips the contents of the pot into the fire. "Whoops!" she exclaims as she catches it by the edges and sets it upright again. "_Fu_ – that's hot, oh man. I'm not, Rin. I'm just trying to make you feel a little better."

Rin giggles. "It's working."

"It is? Good. It's no fun being an adult, Rin. We have to give sad answers to everyone," Jo tells her, and rummages in her pack for something resembling a ladle. Why is it suddenly a billion times more difficult to find something when you're looking for it? Is it some sort of unwritten rule of Murphy's Law? "What I want for you, though, is to have a good meal. And if I can find my spoon, that would make it even better."

"What's a... spu-hun?"

For a minute the question doesn't register, and then she remembers. Right, Feudal Japan. Pre-Westernization. The word 'spoon' doesn't make sense at this point even if they do have ladles and scoops.

"Uh, it's a type of utensil," Jo supplies, and then yanks the ladle from her pack. "There! See? _Spoon."_

"Spuun. What kind of a word is that?"

Jo shuffles over to the pot and dips the ladle into the water and lets it stand. "It's in a language called English. People in Japan aren't going to hear English for another... few centuries. Give or take."

"Then how come you speak it, Lady Jou?"

She sighs and shoots a glance at the girl over the flicker of the campfire. "You are very smart, Rin. Did you know that?"

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome," she says.

"So?"

Not escaping it, is she? "I, uh... well, I came here because of this." She extends her hand and lets Rin fiddle with the bracelet, and shakes her head when Rin tries to pull it off.

"Lady Jou, it won't move!" Rin says disbelievingly, lifting her wrist and looking under the bracelet as though that will offer some sort of an answer to why it can't be removed.

"Yeah, it does that," Jo admits disdainfully. "I'm not from around here. I mean, I _am_, but... I'm not. It's difficult to explain." She doesn't really want to say _I'm from the future_. That would sound too stupid even for her to bear, even if it is the truth. "I'm from another time."

There. Much better.

Until she hears the derisive scoff from the shade of the tree to her side. She tries to keep quiet, she really does. Doubt – she hates doubt. It's always been the last straw. Not being believed. Why should a superman hyped up on demonic steroids believe her? Why should she care if he does anyway? He could worship the flying spaghetti monster and she wouldn't bat an eyelid. And then her brain replays the disapproving sound. Her fifth grade teacher used to make sounds like that, like he never really found anything he saw particularly interesting or captivating.

It infuriated her.

"Is there something you'd like to say, my lord?" she bites out, and feels Rin still by her side. The figure sitting against the tree trunk turns its eyes on her. Sitting under a burning spotlight would feel more healthy.

"You are obviously fabricating a great part of your telling," he says, voice even and quiet and just as lethal-sounding as ever. The guy's like a wound-up predator, always ready for the next emergency. She'd feel sorry for his circulatory system if she weren't so busy feeling maddened by his calm accusation.

"Well, excuse me, Phoenix Wright," she exclaims in English before she remembers that doesn't translate. She forces herself to switch. "And how would you know, even if I was? Which I'm _not, _but anyway."

"Watch your tone, human."

Oh, a threat. And barely two sentences into the conversation. This has started wonderfully.

"You can't expect me to sound amiable after you've basically called me a _liar_," she plows on. _Jo, what are you doing? You're going to get yourself killed. Suicide by dog! What the shit?_

She doesn't imagine the narrowing of his eyes. "I expect you to know your place."

"And where is that? Under your boot?"

The look he gives her would have burned her to a crisp if it could. Unfortunately for him, she's still here, and very thoroughly not-fried. That apparently means she needs to set the record for most stupid perpetrated in under a minute by pushing her luck even further. _Jesus, you idiot, stop talking. Just stop. Shut your mouth and stop. _

"If you have to know, I was born in Tokyo, in the Red Cross Medical center in the Shibuya Ward. I'm biracial and that's been a pain in the a – _behind_ to live with for as long as I'm in Japan, but I've managed. Not to say the US of A is perfect, but it's better. My parents divorced when I was thirteen and it was a nightmare," she says, crossing her arms over her chest and staring the lord sitting just a few feet away from her down as best as she can. "I've made it through exam hell and my mom putting protective software on _all_ of my electronics. Please don't patronize me."

There's that scoff again. He likes doing that. "It would be difficult to do that to one that doesn't make sense and speaks meaninglessly."

Wow, that's the most she's ever heard him speak at once.

"Considering it's going to take about five hundred years for you to understand half of what I just said, I won't hold my breath," she quips, and goes back to staring at the stew. Infinitely more interesting, and much less likely to snap her head off.

"You must think I'm a fool to hope I would... believe you."

"I don't really think you're the believing type," she agrees. _No, you're more the smack first and ask later _type. "At some point you'll realize I have much better things to do than to make up elaborate stories to tell you." _Hopefully sooner rather than later, because you're actually quite annoying. _

"You are irritating."

_If you only knew..._

"Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual."

She ignores him after that even though she can more or less feel the weight of his gaze on her back as she moves back and forth between keeping an eye on the stew and entertaining Rin. It would almost feel domestic if she wasn't from this world in the first place and her host didn't probably want to use her brains as graffiti spray... and if Jaken didn't exist. She's glad he fell asleep against Ah-Un's side before her entire interaction with his precious lord – he always busts a gasket about how she doesn't properly address him or give him the deference he deserves.

Maybe if he acted less like a pompous asshole and more like someone living in this dimension she'd like him more. She doesn't know what it is about the man that sets her off. No. Honestly, she's lying. She _does _know what sets her off and creeps her out. First, he looks pretty much perfect no matter what he does. In the last two weeks of their acquaintance she's watched him do everything from walk, walk more, sit on ground that dirties her _hakama _and yet doesn't even stain his – she's seen him leap sixty feet in one jump and disappear in the blink of an eye – and through it all, nothing about him ever changes. Not even the wrinkles on his kimono are any different. It's unsettling. It's almost like nothing attached to him is ever lived in.

_And don't get me started on the hair_, she thinks unhappily as she crushes dried herbs into the stew. The thing growing from his scalp (because she's about ninety nine point ninety eight percent sure it's _not hair_) is always tangle-free and ready to be majestically blown back by any convenient wind that feels like breezing in. He does spins and turns that should leave it gnarled and unpleasant but she's never seen him need to comb it. He acts like it doesn't exist half the time. Imagine her surprise when she finally noticed he was, in truth, short of an arm.

There had been no way of telling. She'd just happened to catch the fold of his sleeve flopping over the empty space where his left hand should have been. She'd gone to class with a girl in seventh grade who'd lost an arm in a car accident. Her name had been Kerry and she'd been sweet and really funny and admirably good-humored after what had happened. Jo somehow gets the impression he's not half as easily approachable. She already knows he's too proud to have let it hinder him, but he always behaves as though he's expecting judgment. It's tiring.

She remembers being like that. One person versus the entire world gets exhausting. It's why she stopped.

"When's it going to be ready?" Rin says, peeking over her shoulder into the bubbling pot.

"About forty five minutes."

"How long is that?"

"A little longer than a lot."

"Awww, but I'm hungry _now_!"

"You'll eat with more of an appetite. Sit tight."

She doesn't hear a thing from the lord for the rest of the night.

* * *

Days pass and they don't move from the clearing. She doesn't ask why. She wouldn't get a satisfactory answer even if she did. She gets restless with playing housewife so she spends an entire morning stringing together roughly-made target dummies that she then sets on the opposite side of the clearing. It gives her something to do – some structure amidst the constant 'what the hell am I doing here?' doing a grand international tour in her head.

Draw, breathe, nock. Western archery threads the arrow between the string and the bow. Japanese archery keeps it to the right – no support for the arrow, more compensation to calculate with while you aim, and if you're a beginner, more than fifty percent chance you won't hit a thing. She'd gotten so frustrated with it. It'd been a full few weeks before she'd gotten somewhat near to hitting a target and by then she'd been more than ready to give up.

The _yumi_ strains comfortably in her hands as it twists to the side. Movies always make you think bows whiz and whoosh and make great sounds. The truth is that they're almost silent except for the wooden thunk of the arrow hitting something. The almost perfect sniping weapon. A dog behaviorist-turned-priestess with a bow. It sounds like something out of a wish-fulfillment story written by some aging, sexually-repressed dropout, but if this were a harlequin novel she wouldn't have to deal with going to the bathroom in the bushes and sleeping on the ground and waking up with dirt in her mouth, or wondering if she'd manage to find a place to wash this week.

Stories don't mention _those_ parts. Or the anxiety. Or waking up and thinking you're in your own bed until you turn around and realize you're actually in a hut made out of reeds and bamboo and you have to sit up for the next half an hour nursing a panic attack big enough to put Texas to shame.

The feather of the arrow tickles the side of her mouth as she takes aim. She inhales... and releases on the exhale. The arrow flies away from her and nestles itself into the third line from the center of the target. She lowers the bow. Not bad for someone who hasn't really been keeping up for the past week.

"When you shot at the snake demon there was lots of pink light, Lady Jou!"

She nearly jumps half a meter from the ground. "Holy _shi_ – Rin! I didn't see you there... hello."

"Hi!" Rin says brightly, jumping in place, lone pigtail bouncing. "Where did the pink light go?"

She sometimes forgets Rin is _that young_. "Um... I don't need it right now, so the pink light's gone away."

"Where to?"

Jo sighs. At least she got about half an hour to herself. "I don't know where it goes, sweets. When I'm fighting bad guys the pink light comes out to help me."

"What is it?"

She has to stop herself from chewing on the end of the _yumi_. Kate hadn't been kidding when she said children were curious. "I don't know that either. It's like... holy energy, or something. It purifies. Very useful against demons."

"Maybe some of them," Rin says, and then hops her way nearer. "I bet it wouldn't work on Lord Sesshomaru, though!"

_Yeah, plenty of stuff wouldn't work on _that _guy_. "I'd really rather not find out," Jo says quickly. She's actually pretty happy with not talking to him any more than she absolutely has to – and thankfully, there aren't many situations in which she must. Jaken and Rin talk enough for a trillion haughty dog demon lords combined, and her ears agree.

She didn't seem destined to practice that afternoon, so she gave up on trying and put her effort into the task of answering Rin's stream of never-ending questions. They go through the topics of fate, life, death, spirituality, the importance of the fuzz on a bumblebee's back, to fairytales, to stories about Jo's friends, what her parents were like, what colors she loved most, why her eyes were the color of "poison claws" (she didn't ask about that in return, she had a feeling she didn't really want to know what Rin was talking about), to what kinds of foods she knows how to cook and if the stars in the sky were really stones. Why don't rivers run backwards? Where do they go? Is there anything across the ocean? How come birds can fly and humans can't?

While she uses her scrunchie – the last thing she has of her previous life – to build Rin a slingshot ("You need to start fighting back when Jaken hits you, Rin. Come here."), she realizes just how starved for contact Rin is. Mr. Smith tries his best to engage her, in whatever awkward way he can, and she's seen that, but it's not enough. Rin is ready to learn... to start reading and making her own conclusions and to be taught about things that girls her age need to be taught.

_What she _needs _is a good, safe school. Fat chance of finding that here. _

After she's taught Rin how to aim and shoot with a slingshot, they have dinner and Rin all but demands being tucked in against Ah-Un's side. While Jo is struggling to get the blanket out of Ah-Un's saddlebag, Rin turns on her side sleepily, slingshot nestled into the crook of her elbow. While Jo is covering her with the blanket and folding the corner under her chin, Rin tugs at her sleeve.

"La – … Jou?"

She pulls the tie out of Rin's pigtail and stuffs it in the saddlebag, smiling at the foregoing of the title. "Yes?"

"You're... really nice. Please don't... go anywhere," Rin murmurs drowsily and then her head drops and she's out like a light.

Jo just chuckles and ruffles Rin's head of fluffy hair and leaves her to her sleep. She wanders about the camp for a few minutes before she decides that she doesn't want to risk waking Jaken up and that she's too awake to do anything about resting, so she heads back to her little shooting range.

She does some stretches and contemplates the sky above the top of the trees for a bit before taking up the bow again. Finally, she thinks. Some quiet. She listens to the whisper of the arrow's fletching as she follows through the movements and nocks it, pulling the string back till the feather is tickling her lips. She can't see the targets as well as she'd be able to in plain daylight, but she's satisfied with being able to guess. As long as she just gets some moments to herself. No talking. No explaining. No being responsible. Just... peace.

"The bow is a useless weapon at close range."

And the arrow shoots off in a completely different direction than the one she wished it would go; it lands meters away from anywhere near the target, but she doesn't really understand that because she's too busy turning around in a fury.

"Fucking _Christ_! What do I have to do to get three seconds to myself?"

He just blinks at her, like what she said didn't even really sink in. If the language bothers him, he doesn't show it. He doesn't show much of anything, she's learned. The demon lord is standing about a foot or two behind her, looking as spotless as ever, his pale hair almost aglow in the dim evening light. She can't even ascribe an emotion to his face. He just seems... disinterested. All the time. Does anything scare him or impassion him? Ever?

One of his aristocratically-arched brows climbs upward. The crescent moon on his forehead stretches with the motion."Who is this 'Kuraist' you invoke relentlessly?"

His tone is so flat and forward that for a heartbeat she's torn between laughing hysterically and bursting into frustrated tears. Fortunately, she does neither.

"Not someone you'd know," she says flippantly and has to clamp down on her tongue to keep herself from continuing. "What do you want?"

He doesn't even reply to her. "Why do you humor Rin the way you do, when it is obviously something you do not wish to be doing?"

"Coming up with a new question doesn't cancel out the previous one," Jo notes and feels a thrill of fear when his eyes cut upward to look at her for the first time in so many days.

"Answer me."

Entitlement again. This is getting old. "Stop _demanding_ things of me and I might," she suggests before admitting to herself that she may well die in the attempt to get a reaction out of him.

"I do not heed humans."

What a bare-faced lie, and she thinks he can see what she believes of his statement in her expression. _If you didn't 'heed' humans you wouldn't hover three centimeters behind Rin like an overprotective mastiff at all times, you clout._

"And I generally don't like taking orders from demons, yet here we are."

Now the corners of his mouth tighten in displeasure. "Lesser creatures should know their station."

"Don't you get tired of saying that?" she says as she pulls the _yumi _closer and leans her elbow on its upper curve. "Isn't it just exhausting to be constantly angry?"

"You presume too much," he snaps, yellow eyes coming alive with fury.

"Yes, kill me," Jo encourages. "Break my neck here and now and explain to Rin in the morning where I've gone."

The growl he gives makes her teeth rattle. Scary, but she's been up against scarier – especially if the subject is dogs. Kennedy, Jack Russell Terrier mix. This guy has nothing on that unhappy, malicious whirlwind of teeth and fur. She'd rather face down a thousand Sesshomarus than have to spend another extra hour in an enclosed space with Kennedy the Nightmare. That dog had been a monster.

"As for your question," she goes on, tapping her foot, "I wouldn't refuse Rin even if I wanted to. I'm not much good with kids, but she needs everything she can get. She's not exactly in a giving environment. She loves you guys more than anything, but often the things we love aren't always what are best for us."

"Spare me the platitudes, mortal," he snarls, the facade of calm now completely discarded. To her, it's more honest than the total poker-face he wears every hour of every day. "Your words are as hollow as they are senseless."

She almost laughs. Instead she straightens and meets his granite-hard stare head-on. "You keep telling yourself that. But the fact remains that you came all the way out here to ask me about it, and you wouldn't have done that if you didn't think I had something to say worth hearing."

Nearly barely a second after she's finished saying it, she has to shut her eyes against a blast of wind so strong it just about picks her up off of her feet. She hears the slap of silk and the singing ring of swiftly-gathering _youki_, feels the gust comb through her hair and pebbles glance her cheeks.

When she's dropped the arm that's shielding her face, the clearing is empty, and the demon lord is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

**a/n**: steadily working at updates, have a good idea of where this is going. as always thanks for the support and encouragement, seeing all the alerts and favorites is really so nice. thank you again, hope you enjoy.


	7. tuning in

**7.**

"_Never was anything great achieved_

_without danger."_

– Niccolo Machiavelli

* * *

She feels numb.

It's like she's been wandering around skinless for the past few hours, and after deciding excruciating pain got too old, her nerves just gave up and settled for just being useless and dead instead. After a long night and no sleep, Jo wriggled out of her swathing of blankets and crept away from the campsite, making for the hot spring Rin had discovered the second day they stayed in the clearing. The things are everywhere. She'd thought it was some sort of stereotypical exaggeration (and she doesn't really remember so much of Japan from her childhood to have a reliable opinion about it), but if you know where to look, it's like magic. Flat ground, open air, telltale reeds, and voila – _onsen._

Rin likes diving in like the kid she is. Jo, however, being a disillusioned and borderline-hypochondriac adult raised in the turn of the 21st century, pokes about everything before taking any piece of clothing off, let alone cannon-balling into an unknown body of water without testing it first. She'd planned on soaking and taking her time and relaxing before the sun came up, maybe falling back asleep again after the hot water loosened her complaining muscles and relieved the headache pounding at the base of her nape. No such luck. She'd been loosening the sash of her _hakama_ when the bracelet started burning.

She'd dropped everything and immediately curled around her hand, trying to wedge her cool fingers under the bracelet. One would think after a series of similar events, she would be totally discouraged from trying to take the damn thing off. She tried, nonetheless, but was only rewarded with another long minute of agony. Then she'd shut her eyes and flattened her wrist against the cold grass. Steam filtered upward as the bracelet's heat dried and vanquished any pre-morning dew lingering there, at which point she had gasped in disbelief and felt too stupid and clumsy to attempt anything else.

"What do you want?" she'd asked it and shielded her face from the blinding light of the juzu beads.

Most people can tell when they're being watched. Scientists have debated for a very long time over whether the sensitivity to such a thing is a leftover of our previous lives as animals of prey – an inherent ability to tell if there is imminent danger. Others think it's ridiculous. No one can tell if they're really being watched, they say! But there in that little niche tucked away from the rest of the world with the _onsen _bubbling a few feet away and the world still dark and shrouded in the last vestiges of night, Joyce had felt – had known there was something else there _with_ her. She'd known, and she still does.

_Find me, find me_.

"Fuck – that doesn't help at all," she whimpers, watching her blood gather under the juzu beads as her skin sizzles.

_Find me... start at the blue mountain. Where the blood lilies grow._

"What the shit does that mean? Oh, God, please... stop. It hurts so much," Jo says in a voice thick and choked with tears. The fire in the beads goes out like a candle snuffed by a sudden wind. She almost sobs in relief and has to bite down on her bottom lip hard when she slides the beads out of the crevices the burns have left in her wrist. That's going to need bandages. And a lot of healing salves. Shit. _Shit._ It just hurts like nothing else she's ever felt.

Utterly spent and more than ready to just give up on doing anything beyond breathing, Jo forces herself up on shaky legs and strips down until she's in nothing but her birthday suit and submerges herself in the _onsen, _holding her left hand high over her head. After she's surfaced and wiped the hair out of her eyes, she takes a better look at the burn. It's not too serious – a mild first degree, if she has to be specific about it, but the pain is unimaginable. There's an ugly circle of bead-shaped imprints around the part where the bracelet rested, angry red and almost translucent. Those are going to be some nasty blisters when they cool off. Good thing the weather's chilly more often than not. Keeping burns dry and healthy in humid weather is a hassle she's glad she won't have to deal with.

She scrubs the dirt from her shoulders and head with the help of the lye-and-fat soap she'd bundled in her pack the day she left Kaede's village. There's not much of it left. Where she'll find the ingredients to make more, she doesn't know.

A bridge she'll have to cross when she gets to it, she supposes, and dunks her head under again. She stays there for a while, eyes closed, listening to the burbling of the _onsen_ and trying to forget she's going to have to get out of this slice of warm heaven and go back to a cold camp, a sleeping Rin, and an intimidating, silent demon lord. It's been about two days since their altercation (if it can even be called that), and Sesshomaru hasn't shown any signs of still harboring anger. He's just stone-quiet, as always, eerily observant and nearly omnipresent. It's like he has duplicates. Now _that_ would be horrifying. But no, no apparent resentment or outward intent to murder.

Then again, he does seem like the kind of person that would give you no warning before eviscerating you, so there's that. Very comforting.

If she concentrates hard enough she can almost conjure the image of his enraged expression in the black space behind her eyelids. She'd thought he would hit her, even if everything else about him points to rigid self-control. She's willing to bet the guy counts how many breaths he takes in a day. And speaking of which, she's running out of that. Jo breaks the skin of the water above her with an appreciative gasp, shaking the droplets out of her eyes and feeling her cheeks cool in the air. One of her favorite things to do back home was to drink ice water directly after having a piping-hot shower. Best feeling ever, and she may never experience it again.

_There's a lot of things I won't experience_, she thinks as she carefully props her arms up on the rim of rock rising above the _onsen'_s water. _Won't go to Kate's wedding. Won't get that place in Hawaii, eat fried locust, or meet Otep. Won't ever learn the end to Game of Thrones. Ugh, that's just the worst. _

Just wondering about it depresses her. She still sometimes can convince herself this is all an elaborate hallucination and that she may wake up in the hospital any day now, hooked up to IVs and a heart monitor before a well-intentioned and surprised nurse tells her she's been in a coma for fifteen years. It wouldn't surprise _her_. Stuff stopped doing that a while ago (possibly around the time Kagome told her the boogeyman in the baboon outfit actually existed).

_What does everyone think happened to me? Dead? Lost? Ran away? Gone on a long soul-searching trip without telling anyone after losing Dad? _

She sighs and presses her forehead against her good arm. If she ever does get back, how is she going to explain this? How is she just going to pick up and go back to being normal Jo after... all this?

_A good question that I may never have to answer_. That's not reassuring either. The water abruptly feels suffocating instead of warm and comforting and she stands, not even flinching at the cold. Kaede has made her stand under freezing waterfalls ("Purity, Jou, the focus is purity!") and bathe in brooks just thawed from winter frost. It's almost pathetic to admit that she used to be a person who hated getting out of hot showers and dreaded making the short walk to her towel hanger because of the change in temperature. If she'd only known...

Putting on her underclothes and tunic on is an experience in contortionist maneuvering. She slides the bracelet as far up as it can go, until it is almost an armlet – some nights she can move it, even tug it a little over the side of her wrist. She doesn't know why. Other days she can't so much as get it to slide three inches away from its resting place. The absence of it means the burn is in full view, ugliness and all. Now that her skin is cooler she can see the edges of the blisters hardening and congealing. Great. It hurts like all fuckery, looks just about as bad as it feels, is probably going to be sensitive for the next three weeks, and is going to take double that time to heal over completely.

And it's all because of a magic bracelet that injures when it throws _tantrums_.

The coma idea is starting to sound very plausible.

Jo pulls back her wet hair and goes about quickly washing her clothes. She doesn't know when they're going to stay in one place for such a long time next, so she's going to take every opportunity she's got – maybe when Rin wakes up she'll wash the girl's kimono too. Rin plays a lot and runs into everything that could possibly stain fabric. Kids. She's in the middle of wringing out her _hakama _when she realizes she'd thought of the probable future as something that would happen in the presence of the little group she's joined. Not smart. She may wake up tomorrow to find she's been abandoned because Prince Ali felt like having her around was too much of a liability. She can't let herself think about them that way – as friends.

_You already do, you idiot. You can't even say no to Rin. Admit it. You like them. You really, really like them._

This 'internal voice' thing is getting to be really stupid, she tells herself as she beats the water out of her clothes with vengeful force before standing and marching right back the way she came. So what if she does really like this crowd (minus Mr. High and Mighty, of whom she has not seen enough to form a very favorable opinion on)? So what if she wouldn't mind traveling with them for the next month... or two... or three?

_Fuck. _

Almost two years here and she's managed to stop herself from enjoying things enough that she would regret leaving them behind if she were ever presented with the opportunity of going home. Two years. She's gone from city girl to somewhat-acceptable-priestess and learned to cook better than she ever has; she's learned more about Japanese lore than some professionals are likely to ever know, and had too many close encounters with stuff that looks like it's jumped right out of a Feudal Era silk painting. After everything, after being under Kaede's tutelage and discovering there were parts of reality she'd never dreamed existed so close at hand, she hasn't found anything that would definitively cause her to want to _stay_.

But now, approximately seven hundred and thirty days later, she's realizing she may have come to accept her role beside Rin all too easily. She tries to imagine leaving the little girl behind – she can't even picture it. She wanted to avoid this. She didn't want to have to deal with having baggage to abandon, but she walked right into the trap anyway. God, she's dumb. She's so dumb.

_All this worrying is hinged on the assumption that you will eventually find a way home. You don't know you will. Like what you have while you have it. _

That would have been Dad's advice, anyway. She wishes he were here. Dad always knew what to say. What to do. She's nothing like him, and she's never felt so bad for it before.

The clearing is still quiet and dark when she gets back. She doesn't look in Sesshomaru's way as she hangs her clothes up on the boughs of the tree she's used as her unofficial bed these past two weeks; she knows he's awake because of the steady thrum of his _youki. _She's never sensed it be anything but aware. Fitting, as he seems to be watching everything all the time with that creepy stare of his, not even blinking. If she couldn't hear the steady intake of his breath, she'd wonder if he needed to do that, too. Perfectly determined to not even bat an eyelid in his general direction, she stretches her _hakama _and outer kimono out, wrings her hair out decisively, and then sits herself down by the low-burning fire to wait for it to dry.

She combs her fingers through her hair, absolutely set on not letting her eyes stray. Jo doesn't need to ask him or look at him to know that he heard every single thing she said before her misery-induced swandive into the _onsen. _The guy's a goddamn pureblood demon. He can count the hairs on a fly's ass from a world away and then tell you if the fly has respiratory problems and which side of the family the stupid creature got them from. Of course he has no illusions about what happened in the _onsen_. There is no such thing as privacy around demons, and the longer she mulls on about it the more irritated she gets; and the more irritated she gets the more resolutely she rakes her fingers through her hair.

Ow, she thinks distantly, but doesn't do anything to change it. Why does it bother her so much, anyway? If she'd known how irksome and taxing traveling with a near to perfect man-god would be she'd have refused to accompany them from day one. He's passing judgment, too. He definitely is. He is not kindhearted enough not to. Kindhearted. Ha! A laughable notion. If he _had_ heard everything (which he definitely had), he didn't even have the decency to at least act interested when she stormed back into the clearing. Why would he care? He doesn't care about anything. Unless it's Rin.

_Or unless you insult him enough to piss him off and almost kill you_.

Maddening man. Maddening, eerie-looking, cryptic piece of upright mind-warping shit. She can't figure him out and it grates on her nerves. He's not even all that mysterious. He's just an angry, blockheaded dog.

_That sounds familiar._

Even the way he's sitting at the far side of the camp (no, she did _not_ look, she just _knows_) reminds her of Inuyasha. Just as sullen, just as sulky, just as ill-tempered, just as disagreeable, except Inuyasha is actually vocal about his feelings. Hell, Inuyasha's vocal about everything. If he was unhappy with it, whatever it may be, you'd hear about it. Loudly. Sesshomaru doesn't seem to have the capability to talk for extended periods of time, much less pitch in and give his two cents' worth on things that weren't immediately life-threatening. She's not sure which of the two she prefers.

Morons, the both of them. They could be related. What a hilarious thought.

_Curse long hair,_ she tells herself venomously, and fantasizes about chopping it all off so she won't ever have to deal with the indignity of having to do anything but pretend to be asleep in front of the priggish demon lord.

"Leering so will not cause me to cease existing."

She has to take a moment in order to realize that he's actually addressed her first. He's done such a great job of ignoring her state of being for the past half month (except that, uh, transgression at the archery range). What's gotten into him now? Did he finally come to the conclusion that it was a stupid idea to let a human – one that professes to be a priestess, no less – come along with them? That only took an eternity. She'd expected an interrogation earlier.

"Are you always so great with the ladies, or is it just me that gets such preferential treatment?" she snipes, combing her hair away with one hand. He just looks back at her, eyes solemn, a vision of stark white against the dark of the trees and the early morning. If she gazes at him long enough she can almost convince herself he's glowing. Why not? He can jump hundreds of feet high and kill things with a poison whip and keep about a meter and a half of thick hair tangle-free at all times. Glowing sounds like it'd be a cakewalk for him. Talking, however, doesn't seem to be on that long, long list of abilities.

"You know, it's generally expected to reply after someone responds to you," she adds as an afterthought, and he snorts. He makes even that elegant. Elegant snorting. Two words she never thought she'd put together.

"You alone talk enough for a horde of mortals," he says condescendingly. Prick. "I must wonder if you know how to stop."

"Some things are meant to be mysteries," Jo surmises. She can almost feel him narrowing his eyes. "Do you feel like playing twenty questions, or is there something you'd like to ask me?"

"I am not interested in games," he tells her. There's a sigh of sound, a flurry of pale fabric, and suddenly he's standing over her, looking down at her over his peskily symmetrical nose, the firelight turning the color of his hair to burnished silver. He's nearly painful to behold. "What is your aim, truly? Why have you attached yourself to Rin?"

Saying it like that just makes her sound like a limpet. Or a leech. She has the sneaking suspicion he wouldn't mind calling her either. "I haven't _attached_ myself to anyone," she retorts, feeling her ire rising. "I go where I want to, and since she asked me to stay, I am. It's not very complicated."

"Do not patronize me, human," the demon says warningly, his voice a cautious rumble. It'd be very nice to listen to if it weren't enumerating threats half the time it's being used.

"Can we please have a conversation without jumping down each other's throats?" she sighs and ruffles her hair. He tires her. "I don't want to antagonize you."

Shuffle. Now he's so close she could reach out and poke his black boot without having to lean over very much. "You are as poor a liar as you are a priestess."

She almost flushes at the embarrassment that comes with the jibe. "Excuse the crap out of you, mister," she says, her heart giving a protesting _thud_ in time with her words. "I'm doing pretty goddamn well for only having learned to run for my life a year ago. You're just saying that because you know nothing else about me – skill is the most convenient thing to insult, isn't it?"

Jo regrets the question as soon as it leaves her. Uh-oh. His eyes are doing the weird nearly-on-fire thing she's only seen once before, the night he lost his temper in the clearing. Aha. Whatever she says, no matter the content, seems to piss him off. Maybe it's just not meant to be. Maybe it really is her destiny to be mauled to death by a displeased demon lord.

"It is true. I know nothing about you beyond the fact that you are maddeningly loud and that you season your mortal food as though you have lost your capacity to taste."

"Hey!"

"But that will not be true for long. Tell me, what has Naraku offered you to convince you follow me?"

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard well enough. Speak."

"Are we talking about the guy in the really kitschy baboon pelt that seems to have offended, cursed, or killed half the people in this country?" she says, almost unable to believe he thinks she's a _spy_. Does she look like a spy? Coming from him, it might be a compliment. Calling her a spy implies some level of competence. A step up from leech. She'll take what she can get. The lord remains silent as she stares up at him. He'd better not be expecting her to admit to anything.

"No, I'm not in his service," Jo huffs, pulling up her left sleeve angrily. "See this? And _this?_ It's all that guy's fault. Until I find where he's put the seventh bead of this blasted bracelet, I'm stuck here. Not going home. _Working_ for the demon that ruined my family name would be a little counter-intuitive. I've never even seen the guy. All I know is that he's evil incarnate... and that everyone I've ever met has a grudge against him. Does that include you?"

And he just continues staring, as though prolonged eye contact will reveal to him whether she's telling the truth or not. Which she is. Unshaken, she stares right back, fighting not to blink. Just when she thinks she's going to have use her fingers to keep her eyelids from touching, he scoffs and swivels away as though he was born to swivel, the end of his silken hair curving around his back. He barely makes a sound while he walks back to his spot under the tree, though he does not sit down right away.

"If I discover anything to indicate the contrary, human, I will obliterate you."

Such dramatic language, _and_ he didn't answer her question. As usual. "Because that's a very big switch," she says, rolling her eyes.

He doesn't comment on the insolence and she doesn't think she can stand any of the snark any longer. She shuffles right over to her thin bedroll and cocoons herself in fiercely, half-dried hair and all; she grabs the side of her blanket and draws it over her and firmly turns on her side, back facing him so she doesn't have to look at his stupidly pretty eyes. He and them can go take a short walk off of a long plank, thick white lashes and all. Why is it that every beautiful person she's ever met has been thoroughly unpleasant?

Jo snuggles into the covers until the threadbare blanket is well over her head and tries to shut out the meager light of the dying campfire. It's not going to be long till daylight, but she wants to try getting back to sleep anyway.

Any excuse is valid when she's trying to avoid him.

* * *

She wakes up to the sound of Jaken screaming at Rin.

At first she tries blocking her ears and sinking into bedroll again, but the kappa's shrieking proves too noisome to ignore. She rises from the bedroll like a specter returned from the grave, squinting against the bright morning light. She'd just dozed off a minute ago. How is it that it's become day so soon? She pats at the ground around her until she finds a sizable stone and curls her fingers around it. Jo draws her hand back and then lets loose, not even feeling like smiling when the rock conks Jaken on the back of the head and topples him like a top-heavy bowling pin.

"Is it physically impossible for you to talk without screeching at top volume?" Jo says, flinging off her blanket and standing, rubbing her arms to conserve some of her heat. "Good morning, you pissy mini-man. What did Rin do this time? Breathe?"

"Impudent mortal!" Jaken exclaims, lifting his face from the soil. He spits out a wad of grass. "Only my lord is allowed to hit me!"

"Jou, you're awake," Rin says, completely bypassing the kappa at her feet. She skips over to Jo and puts her arms around the woman's waist. "Good morning!"

"Hi," Jo laughs, putting a hand on Rin's head and mussing the hair there. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Yes! You were sleeping so soundly, though, I didn't want to disturb you – Master Jaken said we should help you up by putting some of the fish down your blanket, but I stopped him."

"Oh, is that so?" she says, turning her eyes back to the kappa, who's frozen over his staff. "Fish, Jaken? I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be more creative. Do you fancy going for a swim? It's a lovely morning."

"A – _AH, _I didn't mean anything by – what are you doing? No, stop! Stop! Rin! _My lord, help me!"_

* * *

By the time Jaken's finished crawling out of the stream Jo hurled him in, she's done with her breakfast of fire-roasted fish and watery soup and is letting Rin brush out her hair with the comb Kaede gave her the first week she spent in the village. It's missing two or three tines but it's better than nothing. Straight hair, thankfully, does not ask for much in way of care. There's no sign of the leader of the merry band of misfits, as usual, so it's all she can do to disregard the death glares Jaken is sending her over the remainders of the campfire.

Rin runs her hands through Jo's hair one last time as though to assure herself there are no tangles left and then moves back, proffering the comb to her on one small palm.

"Thank you very much," Jo says, taking the comb back. "You are the best hair-brusher I have ever had, baby bean."

The girl goes red and looks down at her feet. "And you're the nicest priestess I've ever met, Lady Jou. Most monks and holy ladies we meet want to kill Lord Sesshomaru. They say it's bad that I stay with him."

"That might be because I'm not really a priestess," Jo tells her and then takes Rin's hands in hers. "It's not very safe for you to be out here with him, but then again, it's not a very safe world we live in. You have to do what makes you happiest."

"I'm happy here, with Lord Sesshomaru and Master Jaken!" Rin answers immediately, the way Jo thought she would. "And you. I'm really glad you didn't leave."

_Oh, right in the heart. _"That's very sweet of you to say," Jo replies, and pinches Rin's nose the way her dad used to when she was younger. "I'm very glad I met you, too."

"I'm not!" Jaken crows from his spot near the fire. He's discarded his tiny cap and _haori_ and is attempting to dry out from his earlier dip in the stream.

"That's why you weren't included," Jo says dryly, but the kappa goes on like he hasn't heard her.

"You've been nothing but trouble since the cursed day our paths crossed! I don't know why my lord is putting up with the affront of having you trail along behind us like a lost mongrel. You're loud, insulting, self-centered, uncouth, and entirely vexing. _Curses_!"

"Maybe he keeps me around because I'm more fun than you," she drawls, trying not to laugh when Jaken's eyes go wide in horror. It's hilariously easy to rile him up.

"My lord's judgment is not so poor that he would prefer a _mortal_ over his most loyal vassal!"

_I hate to break it to you, but that's already a reality_. Not that she'd say that aloud. Jaken already goes after Rin enough as it is.

"Say it isn't so, Lord Sesshomaru," Jaken entreaties, turning his yellow eyes to the sky. Is he expecting Sesshomaru to drop out of the clouds to answer? Then again, that's not a very unrealistic course of events. Stranger has happened – and she's been there to see it. Please, she prays quietly to herself, let him stay away a while longer. She's not sure she'll be able to keep a lid on her smartassery if he comes back right now.

Jo's ripped out of her reverie by Rin's horrified gasp.

"What happened to your hand?" Rin says, her eyes glued to the burn peeking out from under the end of Jo's left sleeve.

Crap. "I had a bit of an accident," Jo admits, and then hides the burn by tugging her sleeve down over it. "I actually need to go herbing the minute your good lord gets back from... wherever it is he's gone to."

"How _dare_ you speak of my lord's travails in such a tone?" Jaken squawks from behind her. She makes a noncommittal sound but he ignores that as well and barrels on without processing her reaction. "He is on the noblest of quests to rid the world of that rotten waste that calls himself Naraku. Do not question Lord Sesshomaru's integrity. He has more honor and stateliness in a strand of his hair than you have in your entire body!"

"Are you quite done?" Jo asks, digging the heel of her foot into the soil. "You could start a church with that type of fervor."

"And you never make any _sense_!" Jaken says and wrings his hands at her. "What in the seven hells is a _chiurch?_"

"Church."

"Whichever!"

"It's about a few decades too early for you to know. If you're a patient kappa, you'll learn in time."

Jaken opens his beak to reply but it's not his voice that they hear.

"What is the meaning of this racket?"

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Or, rather in this case, the demon. Very funny.

Jaken straightens like he's swallowed a ramrod, his eyes immediately filling with appreciate tears. For someone who gets smacked around more often than not, he loves his lord well. She wonders what the dog demon has – or had – done in the past to earn such loyalty. Probably not much, considering Jaken's propensity toward blowing things out of proportion and idolizing Sesshomaru, even though there isn't a lot to idolize. Unless you count his looks. Which are mostly ruined when he opens his damn mouth, anyway.

"You're back!" Rin says jubilantly, and bounces over to Sesshomaru, who is standing at the edge of the clearing. He only acknowledges her radiant grin with a quick look. Ah-Un swishes his tail happily, stirring up a breeze.

Jaken clears his throat. "Only the sound of your most dedicated servant defending you against this mortal's vile spume, my lord."

_Spume_? "You little twerp," Jo says, sitting up and glaring at the bald kappa. "What is your problem with me?"

He sniffs haughtily in her direction. "Must I number my reasons again?"

"Please don't, I'd like my headache to stay gone," she snaps, and then stands up, dusting herself off. She grabs her outer tunic from the branch she hung it on before she went to sleep and slips into it, tying the sash stubbornly. Whatever's pissed in Jaken's tea today is _not_ going to affect her, even if it means she has to go herbing for the entire goddamn day. She's managed to keep her mood relatively light since being accused of being a spy for a weirdo she's never even met, but that's not going to stay the same if the kappa proceeds with mouthing off. Contrary to her actions, Jo doesn't really mind him. He's vitriolic and grumpy and set in his ways, but not evil – maybe a little malicious, but if she were that short, she'd be angry, too.

She's faintly aware of Sesshomaru's eyes following her as she walks past him and strays into the trees.

"I'll return soon," Jo tells them though she only actually vocalizes it for Rin's sake, and parts the brush to step into the forest.

She's going to keep walking till she hits the main road, which isn't hard to miss. It's gigantic and dusty and marked with years' worth of signs of wear. Not many travel by these paths anymore, because of footpads and bandits, but they're good guidelines. They're not that far inland – she can see Mount Fuji if she clears the thickest part of the trees. It looms up directly to the southwest, which means they can't be too great a distance from what will be Tokyo in Japan's future. Right now, it's the Province of Musashi.

If she thinks about it long enough she can give herself anxiety. She likes to forget that more than half of the things that were ancient history for the first twenty-seven years of her life haven't even happened yet here, and that almost _all _the items that defined her life as she knew it weren't just figments of fanciful dreaming – but that they all sounded like magic. She'd tried explaining to Rin what a television was once, and she'd given up after realizing there was absolutely no way to phrase it so that would make sense to Rin's state of mind.

It's scary stuff.

Which is why she prefers to play priestess and talk sarcasm. It gives her an excuse to be occupied. Never mind that it nearly drove Lord Sesshomaru to breaking her neck (or just plainly fantasizing about it).

She comes to the pathway after about ten minutes of brisk walk. The wayside is abandoned and growing thick with weeds, some of which will be a great help in soothing the burn around her wrist. She separates some of the tangled plants with the toe of her shoe and not for the first time laments the lack of adequate gloves. The next time she drifts into a village she's going to need to do some heavy-duty trading, or at least work for the right to purchase things from the village's storehouse – purifications or killing a local demonic pest usually do the trick. Maybe she'll even pick up a staff or a naginata while she's there, though arms like the latter aren't usually found anywhere other than shrines... or palaces.

"_The bow is a useless weapon at close range._"

Ugh.

It makes total sense that he'd say that, wouldn't it? The guy has not one, but _two_ swords at his left hip. One is a katana she has never seen him draw. The other is a mean-looking longsword with a scarlet hilt whose demonic aura sets her teeth on edge. Truth be told, that thing unsettles her more than its wielder; and the ease with which Sesshomaru moves under its suffocating presence is creepy beyond belief. She often only realizes he's approaching because of the dreadful feeling that accompanies the sword wherever it goes.

She's still grumbling to herself when she kneels among the weeds and divides the grass with her hands, taking care not to snag anything anywhere. Her demon-killing skills may have gotten alright after the first two years, but her sewing sucks as much as ever, which is why she hates having to darn clothing. Her repairs usually make the things look better when they were in pieces. Pulling weeds and uprooting herbs eases the troubled tumbling of her thoughts. She tucks them into the crease of the pouch hanging from her waist and then stands, sticking out her bottom lip as she surveys the dry ground for more helpful plants.

Ah, there. A spring of angelica, tall and lovely, is growing beside a boulder big enough to cast a shadow that almost eclipses her height. That will be perfect for a cooling poultice – what she wouldn't give for aloe, though. Most unfortunately, aloe is about three or four centuries away from being brought to Japan. It'll never naturalize here, because it's a desert plant, but the country has several substitutes though none of them are as effective. How much she used to take for granted, medicine in particular. Now she lives in fear of becoming ill. Wouldn't it be nice to be a demon, and not to have to worry about silly things like sickness and discomfort?

They don't seem to be a friendly bunch from what she's seen, and if Lord Poncypants is any indication of the average demon royalty, she doesn't want to have anything to do with them. Kagome had mentioned something about Inuyasha being mistreated because of his half-human heritage – and it didn't really surprise her. Demons often like to boast about how different they are from humans, but in the end they're all bound by the same petty envies and prejudices: racism, bigotry, fear, unhappiness, conflict, insecurity, sorrow... though Sesshomaru just might be an exception. She can't imagine him being _insecure_ about anything. He's proud of just existing. Jo can tell that much just by watching him.

Pretentious idiot.

She sighs and comes to a stop before the angelica that is gently bowing in the late morning breeze. Jo stretches out a hand, prepared to pull at the stem closest to her, but the person behind the boulder doesn't let her finish the action.

Wait. What?

The pouch falls from her hands as she turns, her heart racing, and then something catches behind her ankle. She stumbles, swearing, and then there are arms locked around her – slender but strong, and a voice in her ear, reedy and unsteady.

"A-all your valuables!" it says, and she realizes with a thrill of terror that a very small and crude (but sharp) knife is pressing against her throat. Okay, Jo, think. Five years in Detroit couldn't have amounted to nothing. She took self-defense classes. She can do this without having her throat slit. She can. Hopefully.

"Where are they?" the voice pipes, the breath of the man owning it washing over her cheek. It smells sour, the way a mouth smells after someone goes without food for days. He's starving and desperate, then. That will make this all the easier. She almost wants to laugh. Why hadn't she been on her guard? Has traveling with the group made her that complacent this quickly?

"In the pouch," she says quietly, her eyes fixed on the little sack of leather at their feet. Please, God, let him not know that all she's got in there are plants. Please let this work.

"What?"

"The pouch," she repeats as calmly as she can, and shuts her eyes at the feeling of the tip of the knife nicking at her neck.

"No funny movements," the man warns shakily and loosens his hold. Just a little longer. "Put your hands where I can see them. Get it for me. I'm watching you."

He fell for it. Thankfully.

She creeps over to the pouch, hands raised as though she's about to be arrested, and then bends to take it. The man waves the knife at her wildly, and it takes all of her self-control to not jump back in fear.

"Slowly!" he cries, his voice cracking.

"Slowly," she repeats soothingly, and keeps her eyes on him while she lifts the pouch with purpose. She watches as his pose slackens, his arms go lax, and his shoulders sag.

Jo inches forward, making as though she's going to give it over. He reaches out for it, trembling, and that's when she makes her move. She hurls the pouch in his face – herbs go flying at the contact as the man shrieks in surprise and titters back, and she takes the chance to knock the knife out of his grasp with a backhanded slap from her open hand.

She kicks it away just as the man makes a last despairing attempt to rush her, but she's ready this time. His punch never lands because she redirects it, and she ducks when he swings again. He puts too much force into the move and he goes sailing past her. She sticks out a foot to trip him and he staggers, falling back-down on the ground, and it is only then that she manages to get a good look at his face. He is old – much older than her, though she wouldn't have guessed it by the strength in his arms or his swiftness – with a thin face and small eyes and a sad brow that makes him look like's about to burst into tears. He's breathing so heavily she can hear the rattle of his aged lungs.

She'd feel bad about tripping an octogenarian if he hadn't been holding her at knife-point.

Jo comes to stand over him, looking down with a strange mix of remorse and caution in her eyes.

"You're not really a bandit, are you?" she asks at last, crossing her arms and trying to forget the sharpness of the blade at the soft flesh of her throat.

"No," the man says tearfully, "only a rice farmer. And not even that, anymore."

"If I help you up, will you try going for me again?"

"No, priestess."

"Alright."

Jo has to exert all of her newfound muscle mass to get the little man to his feet, and they then hobble in tandem to the closest rock that is of adequate size to use as a seating. The man reclines with a pained grunt, pressing a hand to his back. He's gone from threat to harmless senior in under three seconds. Life will never stop amazing her. She remains silent while he pulls off his cap and hangs his head – sitting like that, he looks utterly finished, as though all that's left is for some spirit to come and whisk his soul away so that he needn't have to bear the burden of continuing to live. In that instant, she feels pity like none other for this man that she doesn't even know.

"I'm Jo," she says gently, and his hands tighten around his grimy cap. "Who are you?"

"Kenzo," the man answers, his eyes still cast downward. "I am so sorry, my lady. I thought – I thought... no. I didn't think. I was too hasty. But I don't know what else to do." And then the tears gathered behind his eyelids begin to fall, streaking down his dirty cheeks. "I thought I could do it."

"You must have had some reason," she continues, loosely clasping her hands in her lap. "Thievery isn't usually someone's first choice."

"I've grown old," Kenzo says and turns his gaze to the sky. "I am not as strong as I once was, and now... now there's no hope. For me, or my family."

"You're lucky it was me you picked," Jo murmurs as the farmer shudders. "If it had been anyone else, you'd be dead."

"I had no other choice," he weeps, wiping at his eyes with the back of his cap. "Our eldest died in a raid. Gone. We cannot feed his children or his wife. We can hardly feed ourselves. And my Minami... she tries to be brave, but I can see it in her hands and her face. She cannot afford to share her rations with the little ones. She grows weaker by the day. The ronin took everything from us. The feuding lords stay walled away in their castles and fortresses while we crawl in the dirt and famish. This will be the end of us."

She wants to tell him it won't be the end, that Japan will grow past this warring age where everything seems to end in bloodshed or power struggles, but he'd call her mad for it. Instead she says, "It doesn't have to be," and the words almost die away on her tongue when he looks up at her.

"What do you mean?" Kenzo says.

"There is a village a few leagues from here – Misatomori. Do you know of the Bone Eater's Well?"

"I have heard tell of it," he admits, nodding. "But I do not understand what it has to do with anything."

"Gather your things and your family," she tells him, and stands to walk over to the place where she kicked away the knife. She fishes it out from between the swaying grass and straightens again. "Make for the Bone Eater's Well. In the village, you'll find a priestess by the name of Kaede. Tell her that Jo sent you. The village's granaries have surplus enough to feed you. You'll have to work for your share of it, but... she is not unkind. It's not far. You could make the journey in two days. Keep away from the main roads, and don't go into the forest." _It's filled with angry, bigoted dog demons._

"You... will let me go?" he says. "I... thought you – "

"I wouldn't," she interrupts. After a moment of hesitation, she hands him the knife. "Just don't use it on me again, okay?"

He takes it from her with trembling hands, and tucks it away in his belt. She's ready to turn away when he slides from his seat and kneels at her feet, bowing so deep his forehead brushes the ground. "Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you."

Slightly embarrassed, she lowers herself to his level to lift him up. "Don't thank me. It's the least I can do. I have no way of helping you directly, but... it's what I can do."

"Buddha smiled upon me even though I took it upon myself to do the wrong thing. I will never forget this."

"I don't mind if you do just as long as you keep yourself safe," Jo says, putting a hand on his shoulder. Kenzo is stooped with long years of work the way many farmers in Misatomori are, and it effectively makes him about half a head shorter. "And no more attempted robbery. It's really not your kind of thing."

"I swear it on my dear departed mother's grave," Kenzo assures her, setting the cap on his balding head and pulling it down with purpose. He sees that she's knelt again to gather the herbs that fell out of her pouch. He aids her while she tells him which ones are plants she picked. After the pouch is full and fastened shut again, he pats at his temple with the back of one wrist.

"Will I ever see you again, priestess?"

"Probably," she says, laughing a little. "I return to the village habitually. If you go, we'll more than likely meet up sometime." She smiles and squeezes his shoulder. "Good luck."

Then he surprises her by taking her hands in his, and she feels the calluses on his knuckles and fingertips, the kind one acquires after repeated hard manual labor, like plowing or sowing fields. He's probably worked more in half of his life than she ever will. He presses a thankful, respectful kiss to the back of her hand with chapped lips, and clasps it tightly in his own.

"If this land were filled with more people like you, _miko,_ we would have no war."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," she stutters, feeling some heat rise to her cheeks. "Please. You give me too much credit. I'm just glad neither of us got hurt."

He releases her hands and bows one last time before making off on one of the side-paths that winds away from the road. She waits until he's out of sight to sling the pouch over her head... and to speak.

"You can stop fuming in the shadows now, he's gone," she says loudly, rolling her eyes. There's no sound to announce the demon lord when he steps out from the cover of the trees – just a small bump in the regular ebb and flow of his _youki_, of which he's kept on the lowdown, though not so quiet as she could not notice. It'll take more than that to pull the wool over her eyes.

"I tire of correcting the disgustingly disrespectful way with which you address me, human," he sneers, all with managing not to mar the impeccable symmetry of his face. The condescension is one hundred percent present in his voice. If it were in his expression as well she's not sure she'd be able to restrain herself from throwing something at him – never mind the fact that he would undoubtedly catch it and inflict some sort of gruesome retribution on her, it'd make her feel better. It's his fault for looking like a cupcake vomited on him.

"I'm sure the way you say hello gets you all the girls," is all she says in response, crossing her arms and setting her eyes on the path Kenzo disappeared down on. He wouldn't attack her while her back is turned. He may be confrontational and silly, but he's honorable to a fault. She's amazed it hasn't gotten him killed, but then she has to remind herself he's a demon. They're pretty tough to kill in the first place, even if they're stupid.

She wants to believe he's left, but the presence of the _youki _behind her dispels that idea. She just stands there, listening to the wind in the grass and regarding the sky with the interest of a person who has never been outside before.

"You did not kill him."

"And you have an extraordinary gift for stating the obvious," Jo sighs, and almost pops straight out of her skin in horror when she realizes he's standing beside her instead of twenty feet away. Mother of – how does he _do_ that?

"Sarcasm is unbecoming," he says slowly.

"Good thing I'm not out to become America's Next Top Model, then," she responds, keeping her stare fixed forward.

He sniffs in a way that's three figurative steps away from being dainty. "And once again, you make littler sense than usual."

"You know, the reason I left after you came back was because I wanted to leave you with Rin. Following me out here sort of... defeats the purpose."

He raises a brow at her in a gesture that has become increasingly more familiar over the last two and a half weeks. It's how he expresses everything but anger. "She is adequately protected. Do not question my judgment."

"Not everything I say is an insult in disguise," Jo says, feeling just about ready to throw the towel in. "I'm just observing that maybe leaving her with a kappa whose first response to problems is to _hit them_ might not be the best idea ever."

"Semantics are useless."

"You really like that word, don't you? _Useless._"

"Why did you release him?"

Again with the topic-hopping. This guy just doesn't know when to give up. "Why wouldn't I?"

"He attempted to end your life," he states, as though the rest of the details have no bearing on what should have happened.

"Very poorly," she interjects. Why is she humoring this creep? "Holding a knife doesn't make you a footpad any more than me tattooing my face would make me a demon."

Sesshomaru frowns at that, as though the very notion of a human trying to emulate a demon revolts him. And it probably does, knowing him. Ugh.

"What, do you think he's going to come back in the night and try to finish the job?" Jo says, her tone almost mocking. "That's a scary thought. How could I ever outrun an elderly little man with arthritis? I have no chance."

"If he were not human, you would have not hesitated."

It takes a bit for what he's said to settle properly in her head, and when it finally does the irony comes close to crushing her into a Jo-shaped pancake on the spot – it's that heavy. "_You're_ accusing me of being racially biased? That's precious," she exclaims frustratedly, trying very hard not to turn on him the way her temper is telling her to. All that's going to get her is a cracked neck. "If that's what you think after spending two weeks watching me closely, then your head's broken. All I need is a good reason to stop. It doesn't matter who's on the other end as long as they can respect me. Of which I can't say as much for you."

"Respect is earned, not given out freely," he says with certainty that would convince anyone who didn't know him that he were the authority on respect-giving.

"I'm not here to prove anything to you," she finally says, her voice too close to a yell for her liking. "You can pass judgment all you want if it's going to make you feel better, but if you think I'm going to lie down and take whatever you throw at me, you're wrong."

"I haven't even started," Sesshomaru muses. Though it doesn't show on his face, there's a smirk in his tone of speech. He's so confident and self-assured she's surprised he can walk through the forest without his head getting stuck between trees.

She can feel her face coloring with her rising irritation. "Is that a threat?"

"Hm. I wonder."

And as it usually goes in conversations (or... whatever they have) with him, she very suddenly feels like she's had more than enough of it. She turns on her heel without sparing him a backward glance, more than ready to go back to Rin and even Jaken if it means not having to suffer his cryptic interrogating any longer.

"You can stand there and wonder till the sky falls down on your head. I'm going back to get something to eat," she says grouchily, trudging through the grass with inelegant steps, twigs and dry leaves crunching under the soles of her boots. She can hear him following, though he doesn't make nearly as much noise (because whatever he does is perfect, and walking is not excluded).

Jo quickens her pace, and much to her eternal despair, he has no problem catching up. It might have to do with the fact that his legs are as long as yardsticks and that she's a good six or seven inches shorter than him, but she doesn't like thinking about that, because it reminds her about just how big he is – and how broad. He could turn her into human paste with the ease with which he breathes. She's just an angry, short, freckled thing scuttling through the grass and stomping on whatever is unfortunate enough to be in her way. Not a god, not a demon, not a demon-slayer, not even a real priestess. Just Jo. Fine! There's nothing wrong with being plain. She actually used to think she was quite pretty – that had been before meeting Sesshomaru. And Inuyasha. And Sango.

_This is not helping_.

She only narrowly avoids being majestically bitch-slapped by a hanging tree's branch thanks to her good reflexes, but imagining the smug look on Sesshomaru's face that would have certainly been there if the branch had hit her just bothers her even more.

Whatever he's got planned isn't going to shake her. Not one bit.

Yeah. Maybe if she keeps telling herself that, she'll start believing it.

* * *

**a/n: **longest one yet, whew! i'm using all the fanfic tropes ever used in the history of fanfic ever and i can't even bring myself to care. this is just too fun to write. so... they have a way to go! lol (understatement). thank you for all the wonderful reviews and your alerts and favorites. i'm so glad you like it. best wishes.


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